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NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
BY
T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D.,
AUTHOR OF
" Crimhs Swept Up;'' ''Around the Tea Table;" '' Every Day Religion;" ''Sports that Kill."
ST. JOHN, N. B.:
J. & A. McMillan.
98 PRINCE WILLIAM STREET, ST. jDHN, N. B. 1878.
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THE
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LITE.
^!-:-ift'^!^^piJ:
BY
T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D.,
AUTHOR OF
" Crumbs Swept Up ; " " Around the Tea Table ; " " Every Day Religion ; " " Sports that Kill."
\
ST. JOHN, N. B.:
J. & A. McMillan.
98 PEINCE WILLIAM STREET, ST. JOHN, N. B.
1878.
Entered «=cording to Ae. of P«Uan,ent of Can^., in the year 1878, b,
J. & A. McMillan,
* In the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. ,
PUBLISHERS' ANN0UNCEMB:NT.
Ill issuing Night Sides of City Life from our press, we do it in the profound conviction that the Christian community and the great American public in general will appreciate the soul-stirring discourses on the temptations and vices of City Life, written in Dr. Tal mage's strongest descriptive powers, terrible in his earnestness, uncompromising in his denunciation of sin and wickedness, sparing none. This work is the ONLY keviskd and authokizkd publication of Dr. Talmage's sermons. *
We shall issue, at an early aay, " Hearty Words for al! People," containing Dr. Talmage's adavesses to the Profes- sions and Occupations, uniform with this editioi;.
ThK PUBLlSHKlWri.
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Thomas DcWitt Talmage was horn iii 1832, in Bound Br(K)k, Somerset County, N. J. His father was a farmer of much vigor and consistency of character ; his mother a woman of noted energy, hope- fulness and equanimity. Both parents were in marked respects char- acteristic. Diflerences of disposition and metliods blended in tliem into a harmonious, consecrated, benignant and cheer}' life. The father won all the confidence and the best of the honors a hard-sensed truly American commui»ity had to yield. The mother was that counseling and quietly provident force which made her a helpmeet indeed and her home the center and sanctuary of the sweetest influences that have iWlen on the path of a large number of children, of whom four scms are all ministers of the Word. Prom a period ante-dating the Revolution, the ancestors of our subject were members of the Re- formed Dutch Church, in which Dr. Talmage's father was the lead- ing lay office bearer through a life extended beyond fourscore years. The youngest of the children, it seemed doubtful at first whether DeWitl would follow his brothers into the ministry. His earliest preference was the law, the studies of which he pursued for a year after his graduation with honors frcmi the University of the City of New York. The faculties which would have made him the greatest Jury advocats of the age were, however, preserved for and directed to- ward tlie pulpit by an unrest which took the very sound of a cry within ,!iim for months, " Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.'' ^Vlien ho submitted to it the always ardent but never urged hopes of his honored parents were realized. He entered the ministry from the New Branswich Seminary of Theology. As his destiny and powers came to manifestation in Brooklyn, his pastoral life prior to that was but a preparation for it. It can, therefore, be indicated as an inci- dental stage in his career rather than treated at length as a principal part of it. His first settlement was at Belleville, on the beautiful Passaic, in New Jersey. For three years there he underwent an ex- cellent prnotical education in the conventional ministry. His congre- gation was about the most cultivated and exacting in the rural
6
BIOOBAPUIOAL.
regions of the sterling little state. Historically, it was known to bo alx>ut the oldest society of Protestantism in New Jersey. Its records, as preserved, run back over 200 years, but it is Icnown to liavo had a strong life the better part of a century more. Its structure i.s regarded as one of the finest of any country congregation in the United States. No wonder: it stand.s within rifle-shot of the quarry from which Ohl Trinity, ia New Yorli, was liown. The value (and tac limits) of stereotyped preaching and what ho did not know came as an instruc- tive and disillusionizing force to the theological tyro at Belleville. There also came and remained strong friendships, inspiring revivals, and sacred counsels.
By nalunil promotion three years at Syracuse succeeded three at Belleville. That cultivated, critical city furnished Mr. Talmago the value of an audience in which professional men were predominant in influence. His preaching there grew tonic and free. As Mr. Pitt advised a young friend, he "risked himself" The church grew from few to many— from a state of coma to athletic life. The preacher learned to go to school to humanity and his own heart. The lessons they taught him agreed with what was boldest and most compelling in the spirit of the revealed Word. Those whose claims were sacred to him found the saline climate of Syracuse a cause of unhealth. Otherwise it is likely that that most delightful region in the United States— Central New York — for men of letters who equally love nature and culiure, would have been the home of Mr. Talmage for life.
The next seven years of Mr. Talmage's life were spent in Phila- delphia. There his powers jgot " set." He learned what it was he could best do. He had the courage of his consciousness and ho did it. Previously he might have felt it incumbent on him to give to pulpit traditions the homage of compliance — though at Syracuse "the more excellent way," any man's ow/i way, so that he have the divining gift of genius and the nature atune to all high sympa- thies and purposes —had in glimpses come to him. He realized that it was his duty and mission in the world to make it hear the gospel. The church was not to him in numbers a select few, in organization a monopoly. It was meant to be the conqueror and transformer of the world. For seven yearb he wrought with much success on this theory, all the time realizing that his plans could come to fullness only under conditions that enabled him to build from the bottom up an organization which could get nearer to the masses and which would have no precedents to be afraid of as ghosts in its path. Hence he ceased from being the leading preacher in Philadelphia to become in Brooklyn Die leading preacher in the world. - ^i. ,-..-^.i__
BlOORAPHrOAL.
n
His work for nine years liore, know all our readers. It began In a crampw! brick rcctauglu, capable of liolding 1,200, and lie came to It on "the call " of nineteen. In leas than two years that was exchangtHi for an iron structure, with raised scats, the interior curved like a horse shoe, the pulpit li platform bridging the ends. That held 3,(KX) persons. It lusted just long enough to revolutionize church archi- tecture in c'tics into harmony with common sense. Smaller ilupU cates of it started in every quarter, three in Brooklyn, two in Nt'w Yoi'k.onein Montreal, one in Louisville, any number in Chicago^ two in San Francisco, like numbers abroad. Then it burnt up, thnt from its aahes the present stately and most sensible structure migiit rise. Gotliic, of brick and stone, cuthedral-like above, amphitluiiitre- like below, it holds 5,000 as easily as one person, and all can liear and sec equally well. In a largo sense the people built these cdiflcos. Their architects were Leonard Vaux and Jolin Welch respectively. It is suffloiently indicative to say in general of Dr. Talmago's work In the Tabernacle, that his audiences are always as mr.ny Jis the plact; will hold; that twenty-three papers in Christendom statedly publish his entire sermons and Friday night discourses, exclusive of the dailies of the United States; that the papers girdle the globe, being published in London, Liverpool, Mtyichesier, Glasgow, Belfast, Toronto, Montxeal, St. John's, Sidney, Mtsl bourne, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Raleigh, New York, and many others. To pulpit labors of this responsibility should be added considerable pastoral work, the conduct of the Ij«y College, and constantly recurring lec- turing and literary work, to fill out the jjublic life of a very busy man.
The multiplicity, large results and striking progress of the labors" of J)r. Talmage have made the foregoing more of »:, orief narrative of the epochs of his career than an accouiii of the career itself. It has had to be so. Lack of space requires if. His work has had rather to be intimated in generalities than told in details. The filling in must come either from the knowledge of the reader or from intel- ligent inferences and conclusions, d' -vn from the few principal facts stated, and stated with care. Tl's remains to be said: No other preacher addresses so many constantly. The words of no other preacher were ever before carried by so many types or carried so far Types give him three continents for a church, and the English- speaking world for a congregation. The judgment of his generation, will of course be divided upon him just as that of the next will not That he is a topic in every new.spaper is much more signiflcjuit than the fact of what treatment it gives him. Only men of g.nius
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BIOGEAFHIOAL.
1 I
1
are universally commented on. The universality of the comment makes friends and foes alike prove the fact of the genius. That is what is impressive — as for the quality of the comment, it will, in nine cases out of ten, be much more a revelation of the character be- hind the pen which writes it than a true view or review of the man. This is necessarily so. The press and .he pulpit in the main aro defective judges of one another. The former rarely enters the inside of the latter's work. There is acquaintanceship, but not intimacy between them. Journals find out tlmfact of a preaclier's power in time. Then they go looking for the causes. Long before, however, the masses have felt the causes and have realized.not merely discovered, the fact. The pena'ty of being the leaders of great masses has, from Whitcield and Wesley to Spurgeon and Talmage, been lo servo, as the target for rimall wits. A constant source of attack on men of such magnitude always has been and will be the presses which, by the common consent of mankind, are described and dis- pensed from all consideration, when they are rated Satanic. Their attacks confirm a man's right to respect and reputation, and are a proof of his influence and greatness. It can be truly said that while secular criticism In f le United States favorably regards our subject in proportion to its intelligence and uprightness, the judgment ol foreigners on him has long been an index to the judgment of pos- terity here. No other American is read so much and so constantly abroad. His extraordinary imagination, earnestness, descriptive powers and humor, his great art in grouping and arrangement, his wonderful mastery of words to illumine and alleviate human condi- tions and to interpret and inspire the harmonics of the better nature, are appreciated by all who can put themselves in sympathy with his originality of xiiethods and his high consecration of purpose. His man- ner mates with his nature, it is each oermon in action. He presses the eyes, hands, his entire body, into the service of the illustrative truth. Gestures are the accompaniment of what he says. As he stands out before the immense throng, without a scrap of notos or manuscript before him,the effect produced can not l)e un -Brstood by those who have never seen it. The solemnity, the tears, the awful hush, as though the audience could not breathe again, are ofttimes painful.
His voice is p«culiar,not musical, but prmlactive of startiing,8trong ejects, such as characterize no preacher on either side of t lie Atlantic. His power to grapple an audience and master it from text to perora- tion has no equal. No man .vas ever less self-conscious in his work. He feels a mission of evangelization on him as by the imposition of
BIOGRAPHICAL.
11
the Supreme. That mission lie responds to by doing tho duty that is nearest to liim witlj all liis miglit— as confident tliat lie is under the care and order of a Divine Master as those who hear him are that they are under tlie spell of the greatest prose-poet tliat ever made tlie gos- pel his oong and the redemption of the race the passion of his heart The following discourses were taken down by stenographic re- porters aijd revised by the author. On tlie occasion of their delivery the church tm;s thronged beyond description, the streets around blockaded with people so that carriages could not pass, Mr. Talmage himself gaijiug a^lmission only by the help of the police.
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CHAPTER T.
A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE.
" When said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in tlie wall ; ant! when 1 had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw ; and behold every form of creeping thing.) and abominable beiist.s."— E^ekiel, viii: b, 9, 10.
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So this minister of religion, Ezekiel, was commanded to tlie exploration of the sin of his day. He was not to stand outside the door guessing what it was, but was to go in and see for himself. He did not in vision say: "' O Lord, I don't wan't to go in ; I dare not go in ; if I go in 1 might be criticised ; O Lord, please let me of^V* When God told Ezekiel to go in he went in, " and saw, and behold all manner of creeping things and abomin- able beasts." I, as a minister of religion, felt I had a Divine commission to explore the iniquities of our cities. I did not ask counsel of my session, or my Pres- bytery, or of the newspapers, but asking the companion- sliip of three prominent police officials and two of the elders of my church, I unrolled my commission, and it said : " Son of man, dig into the wall ; and when I had digged into the wall, behold a door ; and he said, Go in and see the wicked abominations that are done iiere ; and I went in, and saw, and behold !" Brought up in the country and surrounded by much parental care, I had not until this autumn seen the haunts of iniquity. By the grace of God defended, I had never
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14
NIGHT 8IDK8 OF OITY LIFK.
I il
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sowed any " wild oats." I had somehow been able to tell from various sources something about the iniquities of the great cities, and to preach against them ; but I saw, in the destruction of a great multitude of the peo- ])le, that there must be an infatuation and a temptation that had never been spoken about, and I said, " I 'vill explore." I saw tens of thousands of men going down, and if there had been a spiritual percussion answering to the physical percussion, the whole air would have been lull of the rumble, and roar, and crack, and thunder of the demolition, and this moment, if we should pause in our service, we should hear the crash, crash ! Just as in the sickly season you sometimes hear the bell at the gate of the cemetery ringing almost incessantly, so 1 found that the bell at the gate of the cemetery where lost souls are buried was tolling by day and tolling by night. 1 said, " I will explore." I went as a physician goes into a small-pox hospital, or a fever lazzaretto, to see what practical and useful information 1 might get. That would be a foolish doctor who would stand outside the door of an invalid writing a Latin prescription. When the lecturer in a medical college is done with his lecture he takes the F^tudents into the dissecting room, and he shows them the reality. I am here this morning to report a plague, and to tell you how sin dissects the body, and dissects the mind, and dissects the soul. " Oli !" say you, " are you no.t afraid that in consequence of your exploration of the inquities of the city other persons may make exploration, and do themselves damage ?" I reply: "If, in company with the Commissioner of Police, and the Captain of Police, and the Inspector of Police, and the company of two Christian gentlemen, and not with the spirit of curiosity, but that you may see sin in order the better to cx)mbat it, then, in the name
A PKR80NAL EXPLORATION IN IIA-UNTS OF YICK. 16
of the eternal God, go ? But, if not, then stay away. "Wellington, standing in the battle of Waterloo when the bullets were buzzing around his head, saw a civilian on the field. He said to him, " Sir, what are you doing here 'i Be off ?" " Why," replied the civilian, *' there is no more danger here for me than there is for you." Then Wellington flushed np and said, " God and my country demand that I be liere, but you have no errand here." Now I, as an officer in the army of Jesus Christ, went on this exploration, and on to this battle- field. If you bear a like commission, go ; if not, stay away. But you say, " DonH you think that some- how your description of these places will induce people to go and see for themselves ?" I answer, yes, just as much as the description of the yellow fever at Grenada would induce people to go down there and get the pesti- lence. It was told us there were hardly enough people alive to bury the dead, and I am going to tell yon a story in these Sabbath morning sermons of places wher> they are all dead or dying. And I shall not gild iniqui ties. I shall play a dirge and not an anthem, and while I shall not put faintest blusii on fairest cheek, I will kindle the cheeks of many a man into a conflagration, and I will make his eiu-s tingle. But you say, '^ Don't you know that the papers are criticising you for the position you take?" I say, yes ; and do you know how I feel about it ! There is no man who is more indebted to the newspaper press than I am. My business is Uy preach the truth, and the wider the audience the news- paper press gives me, tl:e wider my field is. As the secular and religious press of the United States and the Canadas, and of England and Ireland and Scotland and Australia and New Zealand, are giving me every week nearly three million souls for an audience, I say I am
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NIGHT 8IDK8 OF CITY LTFB.
indebted to the press, anyhow. Go on I To the day of my death I cannot pay them what I owe them. So slash away, gentlemen. The more the merrier. If there is anything I despise, it is a dull time. Brisk criticism is a coarse Turkish towel, with which every public man needs every day to be rubbed down, in order to keep healthful circulation. Give my love to all the secular and religious editors, and full permission to run their steel pens clear through my sermons, from introduction to application.
It was ten o'clock of a calm, clear, star-lighted night when the carriage rolled with us from the bright part of the city down into the region where gambling and crime and death hold high carnival. When I speak of houses of dissipation, I do not refer to one sin, or five sins, but to all sins. As the horses halted, and, escorted by the officers of the law, we went in, we moved into a world of which we were as practically ignorant as though it had swung as far oiF from us as Mercury is from Saturn. No shout of revelry, no guffaw of laughter, but compar- ative silence. Not many signs of death, but the dead were there. As I moved through this place 1 baid, ''This is the home of lost souls." It was a Dante's Inferno; nothing to stir the mirth, but many things to fill the eyes with tears of pity. Ah 1 there were moral corpses. There were corpses on the stairway, corpses in the gallery, corpses in the gardens. Leper met leper, but no bandaged mouth kept back the breath. I felt that I was sitting on the iron coast against v;hich Euroclydon had driven a luindred dismasted hulks — every moment more blackened hulks rolling in. And while I stood and waited for the goin^ down of the storm and the lull of the sea, I bethouglit myself, this is an everlasting storm, and these billows always rage,
iiil
A PK380NAL EXPLOKATION IN HAUNTS OF VIOK. 11
and on each carcass that strowcd the beach already had alighted a vulture — the lon<^-beaked, filthy vulture of unending dispair — now picking into the corruption, and now on the black wing wiping the blood of a soul I No lark, no robin, no cliafiinch, but vultures, vultures, vul- tures. I was reading of an incident that occurred in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, where a naturalist had presented to him a deadly serpent, and he put it in a bottle and stood it in his studio, and one evening, while in the studio with Iris daughter, a bat flew in the window, extinguished the light, struck the bottle con- taining the deadly serpent, and in a few moments there was a shriek from the daughter, and in a few hours she was dead. She had been bitten of the serpent. Amid these haunts of death, in that midnight exploration I saw that there were lions and eagles and doves for in- signia; but I thought to myself how inappropriate, Bette the insignia of an adder and a bat. '
First of all, I have to report as a result of this mid- night exploration that all the sacred rhetoric about the costly magnificence of the haunts of iniquity is apocry- phal. We were shown what was called the costliest and most magnificent specimen. I had often heard that the walls were adorned with masterpieces; that the fountains were bewitching in the gaslight; that the music was like the touch of a Thalbergor a Grottschalk; that the uphol- stery was imperial; that the furniture in some places was like the throne-room of the Tulleries. It is all false. Masterpieces! There was not a painting worth $5, leav- ing aside the frame. Great daubs of color that no intelligent mechanic would put oi\ his wall. A cross- breed between a chromo and a splash of poor paint! MusicI Some of the homeliect creatures I ever uaw squawked discord, accompanied by pianos out of tune I
18
NIGUT 8IDE8 OF OITY LIFE.
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Upholstery? Two characteriatics; red and cheap. You have heard so much about the wonderful lights — blue and green and yellow and orange flashing across the dancers and the gay groups. Seventy-five cents' worth of chemicals would produce all that in one night. Tinsel gewgaws, tawdriness frippery, seemingly much of it bought at a second-hand furniture store and never yjaid for! For the most part^ the inhabitants were repulsive. Here and there a soul on whom God had put the crown of beauty, but nothing comparable with the Christian loveliness and purity which you may see any pleasant afternoon on any of the thoroughfares of our great cities. Young man, you are a stark fool if you go to places of dissipation to see pictures, and hear music, and admire beautiful and gracious countenances. From Thomas's, or Dodworth's, or Gilmore's Band, in ten minutes you will hear more harmony than in a whole year of the racket and bang of the cheap orchestras of the dissolute. Oome to me, and I will give you a letter of introduction to any one of five hundred homes in Brooklyn and New York, where you will see finer pictures and hear more beautiful music— music and pictures compared with which there is nothing worth speaking of in houses of dissi- pation. Sin, however pretentious, is almost always poor. Mirrors, divans, Chickering grand she cannot keep. The sheriff is after it with uplifted mallet, ready for the ven- due. "Going! going! gone! .- ^^ But, my friends, I noticed in all the haunts of dissi- pation that there was an attempt at music, however poor. The door swung open and shut to music; they stepped to music; they danced to music; they attempted nothing without music, and I said to myself, " If such inferior music has such power, and drum, and fife, and orchestra are enlisted in the service of the devil, what multipotent
A PEKSONAL EXPLORATION IN IIAUNT8 OP VICI-:. 19
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power there must bo in music ! and is it not high time that in all our churches and reform associations we tested how much ciiarm there is in it to bring men off the wrong road to tlie rigiit road?" Fifty times tliat night I said within myself, " If poor music is so power- ful in a bad direction, why cannot good music be ahnost omnij)otent in a good direction?" Oh! my friends, we want to drive men into tlic kingdom of God with a mus- ical staff. We want to shut off the path of death witli a musical bar. We want to snatch all the musical instru- ments from the service of the devil, and with organ, and cornet, and base viol, anu piano and orchestra praise the Lord. Good Ricliard Cecil when seated in the pulpit, said that when Doctor Wargan was at the organ, he, Mr. Cecil, was so overpowered with the music that he found himself looking for the first chapter of Isaiah in the prayer book, wondering he could not find it. Oh I holy bewilderment. Let us send such men as Phillip Phillips, the Christian vocalist, all around the world, and Arbuckle, the cornest, with his " Robin Adair '* set to Christian melody, and George Morgan with his Ilallelu- ah Chorus, and ten thousand Christian men with up- lifted hosannas to capture this whole earth for God. Oh! my fi lends, we have had enough minor strains in the church; give us major strains. We have had enough dead marches in the church; play us those tunes which are played when an army is on a dead run to overtake an enemy. Give us the double-quick. We are in full gallop of cavalry charge. Forward, the whole line! Many a man who is unmoved by Christian argument surrenders to a Christian song.
Many a man under the power of Christian music has had a change take place in his soul and in his life equal to that which took place in the life of a man in Scot-
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20
NIGHT 8II)K8 OF CITY LIFK.
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land, who -for fifteen vears had been a drunkard. Com- ing homo late at ni^ht, as he touched the doorsill, his wife trembled at liis coming. Telling the story after- ward, she said, "I didn't dare go to bed lest he violently drag me forth. When he came home there was only about the half inch of the candle left in the socket. When he entered, he said: 'Where are the children?* and I said, *They are up stairs. in bed.' He said, 'Go and fetch them,' and I went up and I knelt down and I prayed God to defend me and my children from their cruel father. And then I brought them down. He took up the eldest in his arms and kissed her and said, 'My dear lass, the Lord hath sent thee a father home to- night.' And so he did with the second, and then he took up the third of the children and said, 'My dear boy, the Lord hath sent thee home a father to-night.' And
then he took up the babe and said, 'My darling babe, the Lord hath sent thee home a father to-night.' And then he put his arm around me and kissed me, and said, 'My dear lass, the Lord hath sent thee home a husband to-night.' Why, sir, I had na' heard anything like that for fourteen years. And he prayed and he was com- forted, and my soul was restored, for 1 didn't live as I ought to have lived, close to God. My trouble had broken me down." Oh! for such a transformation in some of the homes of Brooklyn to-day. By holy con- spiracy, in the last song of the morning, let us sweep every prodigal into the kingdom of our God. Oh I ye chanters above Bethlehem, come and hover this morning and give us a snatch of the old tune about "good will to men."
But I have, also to report of that midnight ex- ploration, that I saw something that amazed me more than I can tell. I do not want to tell it, for it will
A PEE80NAL KXl'LOKATION IN UAUNT8 OK VICE. 21
lom- , his fter- jntly only cket. ren?* , 'Go and 1 their , He I said, ne to- en he ir boy, And
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take pain to many hearts fur away, and I cannot cotntbrt them. Bnt I must tell it. In all these haunts of iniquity I found young men with the ruddy color of country health on their cheek, evidently juat come to town for business, entering stores, and shops, and offices. They had helped gather the summer grain. There they were in haunts of iniquity, the look on their cheek which is never on the cheek except when there has been hard work on the farm and in the open air. Here were these young men who had heard how gayly a boat dances on tlie edge of a maehtrom, and they were venturing. O God! will a few weeks do such an awful work for a young man? O Lord I hast thou forgotten what trans- pired when they knelt at the family altar that morning wheri he came away, and how father's voice trembled in the prayer, and mother and sister sobbed as they lay on the floor? 1 saw that young man when lie first con- fronted evil. I saw it was the first night there. I saw on him a defiant look, as much as to say, " I am mightier than sin.'* Then I saw him consult with iniquity. Then I saw him waver and doubt. Then I saw going over his countenance the shadow of sad reflections, and I knew from his looks there was a powerful memory stirring his soul. 1 think there was a whisper going out from the gaudy uph'^lsterj, saying, "My son, go home." I think there was a hand stretched out from under the curtains — a hand tremulous with anxiety, a hand that had been worn with work, a hand partly wrinkled with age, that seemed to beckon him away, and so goodness and sin seemed to struggle in that young man's soul; but sin triumphed, and he surren- dered to darkness and to death — an ox to the slaughter. Oh! my soul, is this the end of all the good advice? Is this the end of all the prayers that have been made?
4
NIGHT 8IDB8 OF CITY LIFE.
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Have the clnsters of the country vineyard been thrown into this great wine-press where Despair and Anguish end Death trample, and the vintage is a vintage of blood? I do not feel so sorry for that young man who brought up in city life, knows beforehand what are all the sur- rounding temptations; but God pity the country lad unsuspecting and easily betrayed. Oh! young man from the farmhouse among the hills, what have your parents done that you should do this against them? Why are you bent on killing with trouble her who gave you birth ? Look at her fingers — what makes them so distort? Working for you. Do you prefer to that hon- est old face the berouged- cheek of sin? Write home to-morrow morning by the first mail, cursing your mother's v/hite hair, cursing her stooped shoulder, curs- ing her old arm-chair, cursing the cradle in which she rocked you. "Oh!" you say, "I- can't, I can't." You are doing it already. There is-something on your hands, on your forehead, on your feet. It is red. What is it? The blood of a mother's broken heart! When you were threshing the harvest apples from that tree at the corner of the field lasc summer, did yon think you would ever come to this? Did jon think that the sharp sickle of death would cut you down so soon? If I thought I could break the infatuation I would come down from ohe pulpit and throw my arms around you and beg you to stop. Perhrps I am a little more sym- pathetic with such because I was a country lad. It was not until fifteen years of age that I saw a great city. I remember how stupendous New York looked as I arrived at Oortlandt Ferry. And now that I look back and remember that I had a nature all awake to hilarities and amusements, it is a wonder that I escaped. I was say- ing this to a gentleman in New York a few days ago,
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A PERSONAL KXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICK.
28
irown guish aloodl ought ,e Bur- ry lad r man 0 your them? 10 gave liem 80 lat hon- e home ig your Br, curs- liich Bhe .» You ir hands, hat is it? you were le corner u would le sharp n? If I aid come ound you lore sym- i. It was tvt city. I s I arrived back and arities and I was say- days ago,
and he paid, '* Ah! sir, 1 guess there wore some prayers hovering about." When I see a young man coming I'rom the tamo life of the country and going down in the city ruin, I am not surprised. My only surprise is that any escape, considering the allurements. I waw a few days ago on the St. Lawrence river, and I said to the captain, "What a swift stream this is." '"Oh!" he replied, " seventy-five miles from here it is ten times swifter. Why, we have to employ an Indian pilot, and we give him $1,000 for his summer's work, just to con- duct our boats through between the rocks and the islands, so swift are the rapids." Well, my friends, every man that comes into New York and Brooklyn life comes into the rapids, and the only question is whether he shall have safe or unsafe pilotage. Young man, your bad habits will be reported at the homestead. You cannot hide them. There are people who love to carry bad news, and there will be some accursed old gossip who will wend her infernal step toward the old homestead, and she will sit down, and, after she has a while wriggled in the chair, she will say to your old parents, "Do you know your son drinks?" Then your parents will get white about the lips, and your mother will ask to have the door set a little open for the fresh air, and before that old gossip leaves the place she will have told your parents all about the places where you are accustomed to go. Then your mother will come out, and she will sit down on the step where you used to play, and she will cry and cry. Then she will be sick, and the gig of the country doctor will come up the country lane, and the horse will be tied at the swing-gate, and the prescription will fail, and she will get worse and worse, and in her delirium she will talk about nothing but you. Then the farmers will come to the funeral, and tie the horses at the rail
24
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
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fence aoout the house, and they will talk about what ailed the one that iied, and one will say it was inter- mittent, and another will say it was congestion, and another will say it was premature old age; but it will be neither intermittent, nor congestion, nor old age. In tin ponderous book of Almighty God it will be recorded for everlasting ages to *ead that you killed her. Our lan- guage is very fertile in describing different kinds of crime. Slaying a man is homicide. Slaying a brother is fratricide. Slaying a father is patricide. Slaying a mother is matricide. It takes two words to describe your crime — patricide and matricide. -
I must leave to other Sabbath mornings the unrolling of the scroll which I have this morning only laid on your table. We have come only to the vestibule of the subject. I have been treating of generals. I shall come to specitics. I have not told you of all the styles of peo- ple I saw in the haunts of iniquity. Before I get through with these sermons and next Sabbath morning I will answer the question everywhere* f^kcd me, why does municipal authority allow these haunts of iniquity?
I will show all the obstacles in the way. Sirs, before I get through with this course of Sabbath morning ser- mons, by the help of the eternal God, I will save ten thousand men! And in the execution of this mission I defy all earth and hell.
But I was going to tell you of an incident. I said to the officer, " Well, let us go; I am tired of this scene;'' and as we passed out of the haunts of iniquity into the fresh air, a soul passed *n. What a face that was! Sor- row only half covered up with an assumed joy. It was a woman's face. I saw as plainly as on the page of a book the tragedy. You know that there is such a thing as somnambu-ism. or walking in one*s sleep. Well, in
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A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VIOB.
25
a fatal somnambulism, a soul started off from her father*8 house. It was very dark, and her feet were cut of the rocks; but on she went until she came to the verge of a chasm, and she began to descend from bowlder to bowlder down over the rattling slielving — for you know while walking in sleep people will go where they would not go when awake. Further on down, and further, where no owl of the night or hawk of the day would venture. On down until she touched the depth of the chaSi. . Then, in walking sleep, she began to ascend the other side of the chasm, rock above rock, as the roe boundeth. Without having her head to swim with the awful steep, she scaled the height. No eye but the sleepless eye of God watched her^as she went down one side the chasm and came up the other side the chasm. It was an August night, and a storm was gathering, and a loud burst of thunder awoke her from her somnambu- lism, and she said, " Whither shall I fly?" and with an affrighted eye she looked back upon the chasm she had crossed, and she looked in front, and there was a deeper chasm before her. She said, **What shall I do? Must I die here?" And as she bent over the one chasm, she heard the sighing of the past; and as she bent over the other chasm, she heard the portents of the future. Then she sat down on the granite crag, and cried: "O! for my father's house! O! for the cottage, where I might die amid embowering honeysuckle! OI the past! O! the future' 01 father! O! mother! O! God!" But the storm that had been gathering culminated, and wrote with finger of lightning on the sky just above the hori- zon, " The way of the transgressor is hard." And then thunder-peal after thunder-peal uttered it: "Which for- saketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the cove- nant of her God. Destroyed without remedy I" And
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26
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
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the cavern behind echoed it, "Destroyed without rem- edy!" And the chasm before echoed it, "Destroyed without remedy!" There she perished, lier cut and bleeding feet on the edge of one chasm, her long locks washed of the storm dripping over the other chasm.
But by this time our carriage had reached the curb- stone of my dwelling, and I awoke, and behold it was a di'eam! ^ ■-■:-'^- '.--:--.- •■.-■-v-- --^^
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THE LEPERS OF HIOU LIFE.
37
CHAPTER II.
THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE.
"Policeman, what of the night '"—Isaiah xxi: 11.
The original of the text may be translated either " watchman " or *' policeman." I have chosen the latter word. The olden- time cities were all thus guarded. There were roughs, and thugs, and desperadoes in Jeru- salem, as well as there are in New York and Brooklyn. The police headquarters of olden time was on top of the city wall. King Solomon, walking incognito through the streets, reports in one of his songs that he met these officials. King Solomon must have had a large posse of police to look after his royal grounds, for he had twelve thousand blooded horses in his stables, and he had mil- lions of dollars in his palace, and he had six hundred wives, and, though the palace was large, no house was ever large enough to hold two women married to the same man; much less could six hundred keep the peace. Well, the night was divided into three watches, the first watch reaching from sundown to 10 o'clock; the second watch from 10 o'clock to two in the morning; ♦'he third watch from two in the morning to sunrise. An Idumean, •anxious about the prosperity of the city, and in regard to any danger that might threaten it, accosts an officer just as you might any night upon our streets, saying, "Policeman, what of the night?" Policemen, more than any other people, understand a city. Upon them
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are vast responsibilities for small paj. The police officer of your city gets $1,100 salary, bat he may spend only one night of an entire month in his family. The detect- ive of yonr city gets $1,500 salary, but from January to January there is not an hour that he may call his own Amid cold and heat and tempest, and amid the perils of the bludgeon of the midnight assassin, he does his work. The moon looks down upon nine-tenths of the iniquity of our great cities. What wonder, then, that a few weeks ago, in the interest of morality and religion, I asked the question of the text, " Policeman, what of the night?" In addition to this powerful escortage, I asked two elders of the church to accompany me; not because they were any better than the other elders of the church, but because they were more muscular, and I was resolved that in any case where anything more than spiritual defense was necessary, to refer the whole matter to their hands! I believe in muscular Christianity. I wish that our theological seminaries, instead of sending out so many men with dyspepsia and liver complaint and aU out of breath by the time they have climbed to the top of the pulpit stairs, would, through gymnasiums and other means, send into the pulpit physical giants as well as spiritual athletes. I do wish I could consecrate to the Lord two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois weight? But, borrowing the strength of others, I started out on the midnight exploration. I was preceded in this work by Thomas Chalmers, who opened every door of iniquity in Edinburgh before he established systematic ameliora- tion, and preceded by Thomas Guthrie, who explored all the squalor of the city before he established the ragged schools, and by every man who has done anything to balk crime, and help the tempted and the destroyed. Above all, I followed in the footsteps of Him who was
THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE.
29
derided by the hypocrities and the sanhedrims of hia day, because he persisted in exploring the deepest raora\ slush of his time, going down among demoniacs and paupers and adulteresses, never so happy as when he had ten lepers to cure. Some of you may have beeu surprised that there was a great hue and cry raised be- fore these sermons were begun, and sometimes the hue cry was Tnade by professors of "'^ligion. I was not sur- prised. Tlie simple fact is that in all our churches there are lepers who do not want their scabs touched, and they foresaw that before I got through with this series of ser- mons I would show up some of the wickedness and rottenness of what is called the upper class. The devil howled because he knew I was going to hit him hard I Now, I say to all such men, whether in the church or out of it, *' Ye hypocrites, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"
I noticed in my midnight exploration with these high oflBcials that the haunts of sin are chiefly supported by men of means and men of wealth. The young men recently come from the country, of whom I spoke last Sabbath morning, are on small salary, snd they have but little money to spend in sin, and if they go into lux- uriant iniquity the employer finals it out by the inflamed eye and the marks of dissipation, and they are discharged. The luxuriant places of iniquity are supported by men who come down from the fashionable avenues of New York* and cross over from some of the finest mansions of Brook- lyn. Prominent business men from Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago, and Cincinnati patronize these places of crime. I could call the names of prominent men in our cluster of cities who patronize these places of in- iquity, and I mar call their names before I get through this course of sermons, though the fabric of New York
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and Brooklyn society tumble into wreck. Judges of courts, distinguished lawyers, officers of the church, political orators standing on Republican and Democratic and Greenback platforms talking about God and good morals until you might suppose them to be evangelists expecting a thousand converts in one night. Gall the roll of dissipation in the haunts of iniquity any night, and if the inmates will answer, you will find there stock- brokers from Wall street, large importers from Broad- way, iron merchants, leather merchants, cotton mer- chants, hardware merchants, wholesale grocers, repre- sentatives from all the commercial and wealthy classes. Talk about the heathenism below Canal street! There is a worse heathenism above Canal street. I prefer that kind of heathenism which wallows in filth and dis- gusts the beholder rather than that heathenism which covers up its walking putrefaction with camel's-hair shawl and point lace, and rides in turnouts worth $3,000» liveried driver ahead and resetted flunky behind. We have been talking so much about the gospel for the masses; now let us talk a little about the gospel for the lepers of society, for the millionaire sots, for the portable lazzarettos of upper-tendom. It is the iniquity that comes down from the higher circles of society that sup- ports the haunts of crime, and it is gradually turning our cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs waiting for the fire and brimstone tempest of the Lord God who whelmed the cities of the plain. We want about five hundred Anthony Comstocks to go forth and explore and expose the abominations of high life. For eight or ten years there stood within sight of the most fashionable New York drive a Moloch temple, a brown -stone hell on earth, which neither the Mayor, nor the judges, nor the police dared touch, when Anthony Comstock, a Christian
THff IBPBRS OF HIGH hJWK,
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jeB of lurch, cratic * good yelists ill the night, stock- Broad- mer- repre- jlasses. There prefer ,nd dis- L which I's-hair $3,000i a. We for the for the )ortable ity that lat Bup- taming for the od who out five explore eight or lionable hell on nor the hristian
man of less than average physical stature, and with cheek scarred by the knife of a desperado whom he had arrested, walked into that palace of the damned on Fifth avenue, and in the name of God put an end to to it, the priestess presiding at tlie orgies retreating by suicide into the lost v-arld, her bleeding corpso found in her own bath-tub. May the eternal God have mercy on our cities. Gilded sin comes down from these high places into the upper circles of iniquity, and then on gradually down, until in five years it makes the whole pilgrimage, from the marble pillar on the brilliant avenue clear down to the cellars of Water street. The ofiicer on that midnight exploration said to me: " Look at them now, and look at them three years from now when all this glory has departed; they'll be a heap of rags in the station-house." Another of the oflScers said tome: " That is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families on Madison square."
But I have something more amazing to tell you than that the men of means and wealth support these haunts of iniquity, and that is that they are chiefly supported by heads of families — fathers and husbands, with the awful perjury of broken marriage vows upon them, with a niggardly stipend left at home for the support of their families, going forth with their thousands for the dia- monds and wardrobe and equipage of iniquity. In the name of heaven, I denounce this public iniquity. Let such men be hurled out of decent circles. Let them be hurled out from business circles. If they will not repent, overboard with them I I lift one-half the bur- den of malediction from the unpitied head of offending woman, and hurl it on the blasted pate of offending man I Society needs a new division of its anathema. Uy what law of justice does burning excoriation pursue offending
8S
NIOUT SIDES OF CITY UFK.
111.;!
woman down off the precipices of destruction, while offending man, . kid-gloved, walks in refined circles, invited up if he have money, advanced into political recognition, while all the doors of high life open at the first rap of his gold-headed cane? I say, if you let one come back, let them both come back. If one must go down, let both go down. 1 give you as my opinion that the eternal perdition of all other sinners will be a heaven compared with the punishment everlasting of that man who, turning his back upon her whom he swore to pro- tect and defend until death, and upon his children, whose destiny may be decided by his example, goes forth to seek affectional alliances elsewhere. For such a man the portion will be fire, and hail, and tempest, and darkness, and blood, and anguish, and despair forever, forever, for- ever! My friends, there has got to be a reform in this matter, or American society will go to pieces. Under the head of "incompatibility of temper," nine-tenths of the abomination goes on. What did you get married for if your dispositions are incompatible? "Oh!" you say, "I rushed into it without thought " Then you ought to be willing to suffer the punishment for making a fool of yourself I Incompatibility of temper! You are responsible for at least a half of the incompatibility Why are you not honest and willing to admit either that you did not control your temper, or that you had already broken your marriage oath ? In nine hundred and ninety- nine cases out of the thousand, incompatibility is p phrase to cover up wickedness already enacted. I declare in the presence of this city and in the presence of the world that heads of families are supporting these haunts of iniquity. I wish there might be y. police raid lasting a great while, that they would just go down through all these places of sin and gather up all the prominent busi-
III!
THE LEPERS OF HlOn LIFB.
88
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ness men of t^«j city, and march them down through tho street followed by about twenty reporters to take their names and put them in full capitals in the next day^s paper! Let such a course be undertaken in our cities, and in six months there would be eighty per cent, oflf your public crime. It is not now the young men and the boys that need bo much looking after; it is their fathers and mothers. Let heads of families cease to pat- ronize places of iniquity, and in a sliort time they would crumble to ruin.
But you meet me with the question, "Why don't the city authorities put an end to such places of iniquity?" I answer in regard to Brooklyn, the work has already been done. Six years ago there were in the radius of your City Hall thirty-eight gambling saloons. They are all broken up. The ivory and wooden "chips" that came from the gambling-hells into the Police Head- quarters came in by the peck. How many inducements were offered to our oflScials, such as: "This will be worth a thousand dollars to you if you will let it go on." "This will be worth five thousand if you will only let it go on." But our commissioners of police, mightier than any bribe, pursued their work until, while beyond the city limits there may be exceptions, within the city limits of Brooklyn there is not a gambling-hell, or policy-shop, or a house of death so pronounced. There are under- ground iniquities and hidden scenes, but none so pro- nounced. Every Monday morning all the captains of the police make reports in regard to their respective pre- cincts. When the work began, the police in authority at that time said; "Oh! it can't be done; we can't get into these places of iniquity to see them, and hence we can't break them up." "Then," said the commissioners )f police, "break in the doors;" and it is astonishing how
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soon after the shoulders uf a stout policeman ^oes against the door, it gets off its hinges. Some of the captains of police said: "This thing has been going on so long, it cannot be crushed." "Then," said the commissioners of police, "we'll get other captains of police." The work went on until new, if a reformer wants the com- missioners of police to show him the haunts of iniquity in Brooklyn, there «*re none to show him. If you know a single case that is an exception to what I say, report it to me at the close of this service at the foot of this platform, and I will warrant that within two hours after you report the case Commissioner Jourdan, Superin- tendent Campbell, Inspector Waddy,and as many of the twenty-live detectives and of the five hundred and fifty policemen as are necessary will come down on it like an Alpine avalanche. If you do not report it, it is because you are a coward, or else because you are in the sin your- self, and you do not want it shown up. You shall bear the whole responsibility, and it shall not be thrown on the hard-working and heroic detective and police force. But you say: "How has this general clearing out of gambling-hells and places of iniquity been accom- plished?" Our authorities have been backed up by a high public sentiment. In a city which has on its judi- cial bench such magnificent men as Neilson, and Keynolds, and McCue, and Moore, and Pratt, and others whom I am not fortunate enough to kiiow, there must be a mighty impulse upward toward God and good mor- als. We have in the high places of this city men not only with great heads, but with great hearts. A young man disappeared from his father's house about the time the Brooklyn Theater burned, and it was supposed that he had been destroyed in that ruin. The father, broken- hearted, sold his property in Brooklyn, and in desolation
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85
left the city. Recently the wandering son came back. He could not find Lis father, who, in departing, had given no idea of his destination. The case was reported to a man high in official position, and he sat down and wrote a letter to all the chiefs of police in the United States, in order that he might deliver that prodigal eon into the arms of hi^ broken-hearted father. A few days ago it was found that the father was in California. I understand that son is now on the way to meet him, and it will bo the parable of the prodigal son over again when they embrace each other, and the father says: *'Rejoice with me, for this my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." I have forgotten the name of the father, I have forgotten the name of his son ; but I have not forgotten the name of the officer whose sympathetic heart beats so loud under his badge of office. It was Patrick Campbell, Superintendent of the Brook- lyn police. I do not mention these things as a matter of city pride, nor as a matter of exultation, but of gratitude to God that Brooklyn to-day stands foremost among American cities in its freedom from places of iniquity. But Brooklyn has a large share of sin. Where do the people of Brooklyn go when they propose to commit abomination ? To New York. I was told in the mid- night exploration in New York with the police that there are some places almost entirely supported by men and women from Brooklyn. We are one city after all — one now before the bridge is completed, to be more thoroughly one when the bridge is done.
Well, then, you press me with another question : "Why [don't the public authorities of New York extirpate these launts of iniquity?" Before I give you a definite answer
want to say that the obstacles in that city are greater than in any city on this continent. It is so vast. It is
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the landing-place of European immigration. Its wealth is mighty to establish and defend places of iniquity. Twice a year there are incursions of people from all parte of the land coming on the spring and the fall trade. It requires twenty times the municipal energy to keep order in New York that it does in any city from Port- land to 6an Francisco. But still you pursue me with the question, and I am to answer it by telling you that there is infinite fault and immensity of blame to be divided between three parties. First, the police of New York city. So far as I know them, they are courteous gentlemen. They have had great discouragement, they tell me, in the fact that when they arrest crime and bring it before the courts the witnesses will not appear lest they criminate themselves. They tell me also that they have been discouraged by the fact that so many suits have been brought against them for damages. But after all, my friends, they must take their share of blame. I have come to the conclusion, after much research and investigation, that there are captains of police in New York who are in complicity with crime — men who make thousands of dollars a year for the simple fact that they will not tell and will permit places of iniquity to stand month after month and year after year. I am told that there are captains of police in New York who get a percentage on every bottle of wine sold in the hat Jits of death, and that they get a revenue from all the bharnbles of sin. What a state of things this is I In the Twenty-ninth precinct of New York there are one hun. dred and twenty-one dens of death. Night after nighty month after month, year after year, untouched. In West Twenty- sixth street and West Twenty-seventh street and West Thirty-first street there are whole blocks that are a pandemonium. There are between five and six huu-
THE LErSBS OF HIGH LIFB,
87
8 wealth iniquity, from all all trade, y to keep am Port- rae with r you that ,rae to be ce of New courteous uent, they crime and not appear le also that , it BO many lages. But re of blame, esearch and ice in New — nien who the simple >it places of ir after year, n New York ,e sold in the from all the .8 is I In the are one hun. t after nigbt, led. In West Lth street and locks that are and six hun-
dred dens of darkness in the city of Now York, where there are 2,500 police^nen. Not long ago there was a masquerade bull in which the masculine and femini.^e offenders of society were the participants, and some of the police danced in the masquerade and distributed the prizes! There is the grandest opportunity that has ever opened for any American open now. It is for that man in high official position who shall get into his stirrups and say, " Men, follow?" and who shall in one night sweep around and take all of these leaders of iniqu? y, whether on suspicion or on positive proof, saying, " 1*11 take the responsibility, come on! I put my private property and my political aspirations and my life into this crusade against the powers of darkness." That man would be Mayor of the city of New York. That man would be lit to be President of the United States.
But the second part of the blame I must put at the door of the District Attorney of New York. I under- stand he is an honorable gentleman, but he has not time to attend to all these cases. Literally, there are thousands of cases unpursued for lack of time. Now, I say, it is the bueiiiess of New York to give assistants, and clerks, and help to the District Attorney until all these places shall go down in quick retribution. ' ;; ' Hit-vjH *"' But the third part of the blame, and the heaviest part of it, I pnt on the moral and Christian people of our cities, who are guilty of most culpable indifference on this whole subject. When Tweed stole his millions large audiences were assembled in indignation, Charles O'Conor was retained, committees of safety and investi- gation were appointed, and a great stir made; but night
^y night there is a theft and a burglary of city morals fts much worse than Tweed's robberies as his were worse
~than common shop-lifting, and it has very little opposi-
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tion. I tell you what New York wants ; it wants indig- nation meetings in Cooper Institute and Academy of Music and Chickering and Irving Halls to compel the public authorities to do their work and to send the police, with clubs and lanterns and revolvers, to turn off the colored lights of the dance-houses, and to mark for con- fiscation the trunks and wardrobes and furniture and scenery, and to gather up all the keepers, and all the in- mates, and all the patrons, and march them out to the Tombs, fife and drum sounding the Rogue's March, r While there are men smoking their cigarettes, with their feet on Turkish divans, shocked that a minister of religion should explore and expose the iniquity of city life, there are raging underneath our great cities a Coto- paxi, a Stromboli, a Vesuvius, ready to bury us in ashes and scoria deeper than that which whelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Oh ! I wish the time would come for the plowshare of public indignation to push through and rip up and turn under those parts of iNew York which are the plague of the nation. Now is the time to hitch up the team to this plowshare. In this time, when Mr. Cooper is Mayor, and Mr. Kelly is Comptroller, and Mr. Nichols is Police Commissioner, and Superintendent Walling wears the badge of oflSce, and there is on the judicJial benches of New York an array of the befit men that have ever occupied those positions since the founda- tion of the city — Recorder Hackett, Police Magistrates Kilbreth, Wandell, Morgan and Dufi^y ; such men as Gildersleeve, and Sutherland, and Davis, and Curtis ; and on the United States Court bench in New York •uch men as Benedict, and Blatchford, and Choate — now ifl the time to make an extirpation of iniquity. Now is the time for a great crusade, and for the people of our cities in great public assemblages to say to police authority:
THE LBPEB8 OF HIQH LIFE.
39
" Go ahead, and we will back you with our lives, our for- tunes, and our sacred honor,"
I must adjourn until next Sabbath morning much of what [I wanted to say about certain forms of iniquity which I saw rampant in the night of my exploration with the city officials. But before I stop this morning 1 want to have one word with a class of men with whom people have so little patience that they never get a kind word of invitation. I mean the men who have forsaken their homes. Oh! my brother, return. You say; "1 can't ; I have no home ; my home is broken up." Re- establish your home. It has been done in other cases, why may it not be done in your case? " Oh,*' you say, -' we parted for life ; we have divided our property ; we have divided our effects." I ask you, did you divide the marriage ring of that bright day when you Etarted life together ? Did you divide your family Bible? If so, where did you divide it? Across the Old Testament, where the Ten Commandments denounce your sin, or across the New Testament, where Christ says : " Blessed are the pure in heart?" Or did you divide it between the Old and the New Testaments, right across the family record of weddings and births and deaths ? Did you divide the cradle in which you rocked your first bo^-n? Did you divide the little grave in the cemetery, over which you stood with linked arms, looking down in awful bereavement? Above all, I ask you, did you divide your hope for heaven, so that there is no full hope left for either of you? Go back! There maybe a great gulf between you and once happy domesticity; but Ciirist will bridge that gulf. It may be a bridge of sighs. Turn toward it. Put your foot on the over-arching span. Hear it ! It is a voice unrolling from the throne: " He that overcometh shall inherit all thing's, and I will be
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unto him a God, and he shall be my son ; but the un- believing, and the sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the adulterers, and the idolators, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brim- stone— which is the second death 1 '*
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THV GATES OF HBLL.
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CHAPTER III.
THE GATES OF HELL.
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*'The gates of hell shall not prevail against it."-St. Matthew xvi : 18.
" It is only 10 o'clock," said the officer of the law, as we got into the carriage for the midnight exploration — " it is only 10 o'clock, and it is too early to see the places that we wish to see, for the theaters have not yet let out.^* I said, " What do you mean by that ?" " Well," he said, " the places of iniquity are not in full blast until the people have time to arrive from the theaters." So we loitered on, and the officer told the driver to stop on a street where is one of the costliest and most brilliant gambling-houses in the city of New York. As we came up in front all seemed dark. The blinds were down ; the door was guarded ; but after a whispering of the officer with the guard at the door, we were admitted into the hall, and thence into the parlors, around one table finding eight or ten men in mid-life, well-dressed — all the work going on in silence, save the noise of the rattling " chips " on the gaming-table in one parlor, and the revolving ball of the roulette table in the other par- lor. Some of these men, we were told, had served terms in prison; some were ship- wrecked bankers and brokers and money-dealers, and some were going their first rounds of vice — but all intent upon the table, as large or small fortunes moved up and down before taem. Oh I there was something awfully solemn in the silence — the intense gaze, the suppressed emotion of the players. No
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one looked up. They all had money in the rapids, and I have no doubt some saw, as they sat there, horses and carriages, and houses and lands, and home and family rushing down into the vortex. A man's life would not have been worth a tarthing in that presence had he not been accompanied by the police, if he liad been supposed to be on a Christian errand of observation. Some of these men went by private key, some went in by careful introduction, some were taken in by the patrons of the establishment. The officer of the law told me: " None get in here except by police mandate, or by some letter of a patron." While we were there a young man came in, put his money down on the roulette-table, and lost ; p TY\ore money down on the roulette- table, and lost; put e money down on the roulette- table, and lost; then feeling in his pockets for more money, finding none, in severe silence he turned his back upon the scene and passed out. All the literature about the costly maguili- cence of such places is untrue. Men kept their hats on and smoked, and there was nothing in the upholstery or the furniture ;o forbid. While we stood there men lost their property and lost their souls. Oh! merciless place. Not once in all the history of that gaming-house has there b«en one word of sympathy uttered for the losers at the game. Sir Horace Walpole said that a man dropped dead in front of one of the club-houses of Lou- don; his body was carried into the club-house, and the members of the club began immediately to bet as to whether he were dead or alive, and when it was proposed to test the matter by bleeding him, it was only hindered by the suggestion that it would be unfair to some of the players! In these gaming-houses ofour cities, men have their property wrung away from them, and then they go out, some of them to drown their grief in strong
THE GATES OF HELL,
48
is, and ie& and family lid uot he not pposed 3 me of careful
of the " None B letter u came d lost; d lost; d lost; g none, 3ne and aaguiti- hats on iterj or len lost s place, use has e losers
a man )f Lon- lud the b as to roposed indered t3 of the \n have
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strong
drink, some to ply the counterfeiter's pen, and so restore their fortunes, some resort to the suicide's revolver, but all going down, and that work proceeds day by day, and night by night, until it is estimated that every day in Christendom eighty million dollars pass from hand to hand through gambling practices, and every year in Christendom one hundred and twenty-three billion, one hundred million dollars change hands in that way.
" But," I said, " it is 11 o'clock, and we must be off." We passed out into the hallway and so into the street, the burly guard slamming the door of the house after us, and we got into the carriage and rolled on toward the gates of hell. You know about the gates of heaven. You have often l.eard them preached about. There are three to each point of the compass. On the north, three gates; on the south, three gates; on the east, three gates; on the west, three gates; and each gate is of solid pearl. Oh ! gateof heaven ; may we all get into it. But who shall describe the gates of hell spoken of in my text? These gates are burnished until they sparkle and glisten in the gas-light. They are mighty, and set in sockets of deep and dreadful masonry. They are high, so that those who are in may not clamber over and get out. They are heavy, but they swing easily in to let those go in who are to be destroyed. Well, my friends, it is always safe to go where God tells you to go, and God had told me to go through these gates of hell, and ex- plore and report, and, taking three of the high police authorities and two of the elders of my church, I went in, and I am here this morning to sketch the gates of hell. I remember, when the Franco-German war was going on, that I stood one day in Paris looking at the gates of the Tuileries, and I was so absorbed in the sculp- turing at the top of the gates — the masonry and the
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bronze — that I forgot myself, and after awhile, looking down, I saw that there were officers of the law scrutinizing rae, supposing, no doubt, I was a German, and looking ut those gates for adverse purposes. But, my friends, we shall not stand looking at the outside of the gates of hell. Througli this midnight exploration I shall tell you of both sides, and I shall tell you what those gates are made of. With the hammer of God's truth I shall pound on the brazen panels, and with the lantern of God's truth I shall flash a light upon the shining
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Gate the first: Impure literature. Anthony Com- Btock seized twenty tons of bad books, plates, and letter- press, and when our Professor Cochran, of the Poly- technic Institute, poured the destructive acids on those plates, they smoked in '>e righteous annihilation. And yet a great deal of the bad literature of the day is not gripped of the law. It is strewn in your parlors; it is n your libraries. Some of your children read it at night after they have retired, the gas-burner swung as near as possible to their pillow. Much of this literature is un- der the title of scientific information. A book agent with one of these infernal books, glossed over with scien- tific nomenclature, went into a hotel and sold in one day a hundred copies, and sold them all to women! It is appalling that men and women who can get through their family physician all the useful information they may need, and without any contamination, should wade chin deep through such accnrsed literature under the plea of getting useful knowledge, and that printing- presses, hoping to be called decent, lend themselves to this infamy. Fathers and mothers, be not deceived by the title, "medical works." Nino-tenths of those books come hot from the lost world, though they may have on
TIIK GATES OF HBLL.
45
them the names of the publishing-houses of New York and Philadelphia. Then there is all the novelette litera- ture of the day flung over the land by the million. As there are good novels that are long, so I suppose there may be ^ood novels that are short, and so there may be a good novelette, but it is the exception. No one — mark this — no one systematically reads tlio average novelette of this day and keeps either integrity or virtue. The most of these novelettes are written bv broken-down literary men for small compensation, on the principle that, having failed in literature elevated and pure, they hope to succeed in the tainted and the nasty. Ohl this is a wide gate of hell. Every panel is made out of a bad book or newspaper. Every hinge is theinterjoined type of a corrupt printing-press. Every bolt or lock of that gate is made out of the piate of an unclean pictorial. In other words, there are a million men and women in the United States to-day reading themselves into hell ! When in your own beautiful city a prosperous family fell into ruins through the misdeeds of one of its members, the amazed mother said to the oflicer of the law: *' Why, I never supposed there was anything wrong. I never thought there could be anything wrong." Then she sat weeping in silence for some time, ''ud said: "Oh! I have got it now! I know, I know! I found in her bureau after she went away a bad book. That's what slew her." These leprous booksellers have gathered up the catalogues of all the male and female seminaries in the United States, catalogues containing the names and the residences of all the students, and circulars of death are sent to every one, without any exception. Can you imagine anything more deathful? There Vi not a young person, male or female, or an old person, who has not had offered to him or her a bad book or a bad picture.
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Scour your house to find out whether there are any of these adders coiled on your parlor center- table, or coiled amid the toilet set on the dressing-case. I adjure you before the sun goes down to explore your family libraries with an inexorable scrutiny. Remember that one bad book or bad picture may do the work for eternity. I want to arouse all your suspicions about novelettes. I want to put you on the watch against everything that may seem like surreptitious correspondence through the postofRce. I want you to understand that impure litera- ture is one of the broadest, highest, mightiest gates of the lost.
Gate the second : The dissolute dance. You shall not divert me to the general subject of dancing. Whatever you may think of the parlor dance, or the methodic mo- tion of the body to sounds of music in the family or the social circle, I am not now discussing that question. I want you to ;inite with me this morning in recogniz- ing the fact that there is a dissolute dance. You know of what I speak. It is seen not only in the low haunts of death, but in elegant mansions. It is the first step to eternal ruin for a great multitude of both sexes. You know, my friends, what postures, and attitudes, and fig- ures are suggested of the devil. They who glide into the dissolute dance glide over an inclined plane, and the dance is swifter and swifter, wilder and wilder, until with the speed of lightning they whirl off the edges of a decent life into a fiery future. This gate of hell swings across the Ax minster of many a fine parlor, and across the ball-room of the sun \ner watering-place. You have no right, my brother, my sister — you have no right to take an attitude to the sound of music which would be unbecoming in the absence of music. No Chickering grand of city parlor or fiddle of mountain picnic can consecrate that which God hath cursed.
THE GATES OF HBLL.
47
>iled you
Gate the third: Indi8creet apparel. The attire of
woman for the last four or live years has been beautiful
and graceful beyond anything I have known ; but there
are those who will always carry that which is right into
the extraordinary and indiscreet. I am told that there
is a fashion about to come in upon us that is shocking
to all righteousness. I charge Christian women, neither
by style of dress nor adjustment of apparel, to become
administrative of evil. Perhaps none else will dare to
tell you, 8(» I will tell you that there are multitudes of
men who owe their eternal damnation to the boldness
of womanly attir|. Show me the fashion-plates of any
age between this and the time of Louis XVI., of France,
and Henry VIII., of England, and I will tell you the
type of morals or immorals of that age or that year.
No exception to it. Modest apparel means a righteous
people. Immodest apparel always means a contaminated
and depraved society. You wonder that the city of Tyre
was destroyed with such a terrible destruction. Have
you ever seen the fashion-plate of the city of Tyre? I
will show it to you:
"Moreover, the Lord aaith, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretchcd-forth necks and wanton eyes, walk- ing aud mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet, in that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisp ing-pins."
That is the fashion-plate of ancient Tyre. And do you wonder that the Lord God in His indignation blotted out the city, so that fishermen to-day spread their nets where that city once stood?
Gate the fourth: Alcoholic beverage. In our mid- night exploration we saw that all the scenes of wicked- ness were under the enchantment of the wine-cup. That
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was what the waitresses carried on tiie platter. That was what glowed on the table. That was what shone in illuminated gardens. That was what flushed the cheeks of the patrons who came in. That was what staggered the step of the patrons as they went out. Oh! the wine- cup is the patron of impurity. The offi^-srs of the law that night told us that nearly all the men who go into the shambles of death go in intoxicated, the meutal and the spiritual abolished that the brute may triumph. Tell me that a young man drinks, and I know the whole story. If he become a captive of the wine-cup, he will become a captive of all other vices; ogly give him time. No one ever runs drunkenness alone. That is a car- rion-crow that goes in a flock, and when you see that beak ahead, you may know^ the other beaks are coming. In other words, the wine-cup unbalances and dethrones one's better judgment, and leaves one the prey of all evil appetites that may choose to alight upon his soul. There is not a place of any kind of sin in the United States to-day that does not find its chief abettor in the chalice of inebriacy. There is either w drinking-bar before, or one behind, or one above, or one underneath. The officers of the law said to me that night: "These people escape legal penalty because they are all licensed to sell liquor." Then I said within myself, " The courts that license the sale of strong drink license gambling- houses, license libertinism, license disease, license death, license all sufferings, all crimes, all despoliations, all disasters, all murders, all woe. It is the courts and the Legislature that are swinging wide open this grinding, creaky, stupendous gate of the lost."
But you say, "You have described these gates of hell and shown us how they swing in to allow the entrance of the doomed. Will you not, please, before you get
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TIIK GATES OF HKLL.
4»
That one in cheeks ggered B wine- le law 20 into tal and iuinph. B whole he will m. time. J a car- ^ee that coming. Bthrones f all evil lis soul. United )!• in the king-bar erneath. "These licensed e courts mbling- le death, [ions, all and the rinding,
through tlie sermon, tell us how these gates of hell may r^'ing out to allow the escape of the penitent?" I reply,, but very few escape. Of the thousand that go in nine hundred and ninety-nine perish. Suppose one of these wanderers should knock at your door, would you admit her? Suppose you knew where she came from, would you ask her to sit down at your dining- table? "Would you ask her to become the governess of your children? Would you introduce her among your acquaintanceships? Would you take the responsibility of pulling on the out- side of the gate of hell while she pushed on the inside of that gate trying to get out? You would not, not one of^ a thousand of you that would dare to do it. You write beautiful poetry over her sorrows and weep over her misfortunes, but give her practical help you never will. There is not one person out of a "-housand that will — there is not one out of five thousand that has — come so near the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ as to dare to help one of these fallen souls. But you say, "Are there no ways by which the wanderer may escape?" Oh, yes; three or four. The one way is the sfewing-girl's garret, dingy, cold, hunger-blasted. But you say, "Is there no other way for her to escape?" Oh, yes. Another way is the street that leads to the East river, at midnight, the end of the city dock, the moon shining down on the water making it look so smooth she wonders if it is deep enough. It is. No boatman near enough to hear the plunge. No watchman near enough to pick her out before she sinks the third time. No other way? Yes. By the curve of the Hudson River Railroad at the point where the engineer of the lightning express train cannot see a hundred yards ahead to the form that lies across the track. He may whistle "down brakes," but not soon to disappoint the one who seeks her death. But
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you say, "Isn't God good, and won't lie tbrg ' Yes; but man will not, woman will not, society will not. The church of God says it will, but it will not. Our work, then, must be prevention rather than cure. Stamping here telling this story to-day, it is not so much in the hope that I will persuade one who has dashed down a thousand feet over the rocks to crawl up again into life and light, but it is to alarm those who are coming too near the edges. Have you ever listened to hear the lamentation that rings up from those far depths?
"Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, '; Fell like a suowflake, from heaven to hell;
Fell, to be trampled as filth of the street; • Fell, to be scoflfed at, be spit on, and beat. Pleading, cursing, begging to die, Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; i
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, Hating the living and fearing the dead." _ ,.
Bat you say. "What can be the practical use of this course of sermons?" I say, much everywhere. I am greatly obliged to those gentlem^ f the press who have fairly reported what I have said ... these occasions, and the press of this city and New York, and of the other prominent cities. I thank you for the almost universal fairness with which you have presented what I have had to say. Of course, among the educated and refined journalists who sit at these tables, and have been sitting here for four or five years, there will be a fool or two that does not understand his business, but that ought not to discredit the grand newspaper printing-press. I thank also, those who have by letters cheered me in this work — letters coming from all parts of the land, from Christian reformers telling me to go on in the work which I have undertaken. Never so many letters in my life have 1 received. Perhaps one out of the hundred
THE OATUS OF HKLL.
01
conaeraiiatory, aa one I got yesterday from a man who said he thouglit my sermons would do great damage iu the fact that they would arouse the suspicion of domestic circles as to where the head of tie family was spending his evenings! I was sorry it was an anonymous letter^ for I should have written to that man's wife telling her to put a detective on her husband's track, for I knew right away he was going to bad places! My friends, you say, " It is not possible to do anything with these stalwart iniquities; you cannot wrestle them down." Stupid man, read my text: *'The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church." Those gates of hell are to be prostrated just as certainly as God and the Bible are true, but it will not be done until Christian men and women, quitting their pruaery and squeamishness in this matter, rally the whole Christian sentiment of the church and assail theoe great evils of society. The Bible utters its denunciation in this direction again and again, and yet the pi y of the day is such a namby-pamby, emetic bort of a thing that you cannot even quote Scrip- ture without making somebody restless. As long as this holy imbecility reigns in the church of God, sin will laugh you to scorn. I do not know but that before tlie church wakes up matters will get worse and worse, and that there will have to be one lamb sacrificed from each of the most carefully-guarded folds, and the wave of uncleanness dash to the spire of the village church and the top of the cathedral pillar. Prophets and patriarchs^ and apostles and evangeli8ts,and Christ himself have thun- dered against these sins as against no other, and yet there are those who think we ought to take, when we speak of these subjects, a tone apologetic. I put my foot on all the conventional rhetoric on this subject, and I tell you plainly that unless you give up that sin your doom is
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52
NIGHT SIDES OF OITY LIFE.
sealed, and world without end you will be chased by the anathemas of an incensed God. I rally you under the cheerful prophecy of the text; I rally you to a besiege- ment of the gates of hell. "We want in this besieg- ir^ct host no soft sentimentalists, but men who are willing to give and take hard knocks. The gates of Gaza were carried off, the gates of Thebes \^ ere battered down, the gates of Babylon were destroyed, and the gates of hell are going to be prostrated. The Christianized printing- press will be rolled up as the chief battering-ram. Then there will be a long list of aroused pulpits, which shall be assailing fortresses, and God's red-hot truth shall be the fiying ammunition of the contest; and the sappers and the miners will lay the train under these foundations of sin, and at just the right time God, who leads on the fray, will cry, " Down with the gates!" and the explo- sion beneath will be answered by all the trumpets of God on high celebrating universal victory. But there may be in this house one wanderer that would like to have a kind word calling homeward, and I cannot sit down until I have uttered that word. I have told you that society has no mercy. Did I hint, at an earlier point in this subject, that God will have mercy upon any wanderer who would like to corae back to the heait of Infinite love?
A cold Christmas night in a farm-house. Father comes in from the barn, knocks the snow from his shoes, and sits down by the fire. The mother sits at the stand knitting. She says to him : " Do you remember it is anniversary to-night?" The father is sngered. He never wants any allusion to the fact that one had gone away, and the mere suggestion that it was the anniversary of that sad event made him quite rough, although the tears ran down his cheeks. The old house-dog, that had played
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THE GATES OF HELL.
53
by tKe der the besiege-
besieg- i ^ illing aza were own, the a of bell printing- 1. Then lich shall L sliall be B sappers undations ids on the he explo- ets of G-od jre may be
to have a iown until lat society int in this r wanderer
of infinite
e. Father his shoes, the stand
ember it is He never
gone away,
liversary of h the tears
had played
\?ith the wanderer when she was a child, came up and put his head on the old man's knee, but he roughly repulsed the dog. He wants nothing to remind him of the anniversary day.
A cold winter night in a city church. It is Christmas night. They have been decorating the sanctuary. A lost wanderer of the street, with thin shawl about her, at- tracted by the warmth and light, comes in and sirs near the door. The minister of religion is preaching of Him who was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, and the poor soul by the door said: ^'Why, that must mean me ; ' mercy for the chief rf sinners ; bruised for our iniquities ; wounded for our transgres- sions.' " The music that night in the sanctuary brought back *he old hymn which she used to sing when with father and mother she worshiped God in the village church. The service over, the minister went dc A'n the aisJe. She said to him: " Were those words for me? *Wcunded for our transgressioDb.' Was that for me?" The man of God understood her not. He knew not how to iomfort a shipwrecked soul, and he passed on and he passed out. The poor wanderer followed into tiie street. "What are you doing here, Meg?" said the police. "What are you doing he.e to-night?" "Ohl'* she replied, *' I was in to warm myself;" and then the rattling cough came, and she held to the railing until the paroxysm was over. She passed on down the street, falling from exhaustion; recovering herself again, until after a while she reached the outskirts of the citv and passed on into the country road. It seemed so fi\miliar, she kept on the road, and she saw in the distance a light jn the window. Ah I that light had been gleaming there every night since she went away. On that country ^oad she passed until she came to the garden gate. She
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54
NIGHT SIDES OP CITY LIFE.
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opened it and passed up the path where she played in childhood. She came to the steps and looked in at the fire on the hearth. Then she put her fingers to the latch. Oh I 'if that door had been locked she would have per- ished on the threshold, for she was near to death. But that door had not been locked since the time she went away. She pushed open the door. She went in and laid down on the hearth by the tire. The old house-dog growled as he saw her enter, but there was something in the voice he recognized, and he frisked about her urtil he almost pushed her down in his joy. In the morning the mother came down, and she saw a bundle of rags on the hearth ; but when the face was uplifted, she knew it, and it was no more old Meg of the street. Throwing her arms around the returned prodigal, she cried, "Oh! Maggie." The child threw her arms around her mother's neck, and said: ''Oh! Mother," and while they were embraced a rugged form towered above them. It was the father. The severity all goiie out of his face, he stooped and took her up tenderly and carried her to mother's room, and laid her down on mother's bed, for she was dying. Then the lost one, looking up into her mother's face, said : " 'Wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities I" Mother, do you think that means me ?" " Oh, yes, my darling," said the mother, " if mother is so glad to get you back, don't you think God is glad to get ycu back?" And there she lay dying, and all her dreams and all her prayers were filled with the words, ** Wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities," until just before the moment of her departure, her face lighted up, showing the pardon of God had dropped upon her soul. And there she slept away on the bosom of a pardoning Jesus. So the Lord took back one whom the world rejected.
WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED.
55
CHAPTER lY.
WHOM I SAW AND WHOM I MISSED.
..-r-
"And the vale of Slddiin was full of slirae-pits."— Genesis xiv: 10.
About six months a^o, a gentleman in Augusta, Geor- gia, wrote me asking me to preach from this text, and the time has come for the subj><jt. The neck of an army had been broken by falling into these half-hidden slime- pits. How deep they were, or how vile, or how hard to get out of, we are not told; but the whole scene is so far distant in the past that we have not half as much inter- est in this statement of the text as we have in the announcement that our American cities are full of slime- pits, and tens of thousands of people are falling in them night by night. Recently, in the name of God, I ex- plored some of these slime-pits. Why did I do so? In April last, seated in the editorial rooms of one of the chief daily newspapers of. ]S Cw York, the editor said to me: '*Mr. Talraage, you clergymen are at great disad- vantage when you con to battle iniquity, for yon don't know what you are talking ib , md we la\ uen are aware of the fact that you don l know of what you are talking; now, if you would like to inake a ptirsonal inves- tigation, I will see that you shall get tho hight t official escort." I thanked him, accepted thr rivitation, and told him that this autumn I would begin the tour. The fact was that I had for a long time wanted < say some words of warning and invitation to the v ^g men of this country, and I felt if my course oi sermons was preceded by a tour of this sort I should not only be bet-
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NlOH'l Sli>K8 OF CITY LIFE.
ter acquainted with the subject, but I should have the whole country for an audience; and it has been a delib- erate plan of ray ministry, whenever I am going to try to do anything especial for God, or humanity, or the church, to do it in such a way that the devil will always advertise it frfee gratis for nothing! That was the reason I gave two weeks' previous notice of my pulpit inten- tions. The result has been satisfactory.
Standing within those purlieus of death, under the command of the police and in their company, I was as much surprised .^t the people whom I missed as at the people whom I saw. I saw bankers there, and brokers there, and merchants there, and men of all classes and occupations who have leisure, there; but there was one class of persons that T missed. I looked for them all up and down the galleries, and amid the illumined gardens, and all up and down the staircases of death. I saw not one of them. I mean the hard-working classes, the laboring classes, of our great cities. You tell me they could not afford to go there. They could. Entrance, twenty-five cents. They could have gone there if they had a mind to; but the simple fact is that hard work is a friend to good morals. The men who toil from early morn until late at night when they go home are tired out, and want to sit down and rest, or to saunter out with their families along the street, or to pass into some quiet place of amusement where they will not be ashamed- to take wife or di ighter. The busy populations of these cities are the noi*al populations. I observed on the night of our exploration that the places of dissipation are chiefly supported by the men who go to business at 9 and 10 o'ciock in he morning and get through at 3 and 4 in the aftern* )n. They have plenty of time to go to destruction in 9 A plenty of money to buy a through
WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM 1 MISSEH.
6f
lave the a delib- g to try , or the I always le reason it inteii-
nder the I was as as at the i brokers asses and 3 was one
them all illumined , of death, ng classes, :ni tell me
Entrance,
irA
if they rd work is Vom early are tired out with some quiet shamed" to [IB of these ^ed on the dissipation business at ough at 3 time to go y a through
ticket on the Grand Trunk Kaiiroad to perdition, Etop- ping at no depot until they get to the eternal smash-up I Those are the fortunate and divinely-blessed young men who have to breakfast early and take supper late, and have the entire interregnum tilled up with work that blis- ters the hands, and makes the legs ache and the brain weary. There is no chance for the morals of that young man who has plenty of money and no occupation. You may go from Central Park to the Battery, or you may go from Fulton Street Ferry, Brooklyn, out to South , Bushwick, or out to Hunter's Point, or out to Gowanus, ' and you will not find one young man of that kind who ' h -8 not already achieved his ruin, or who is not on the way thereto at the rate of sixty miles the hour. Those are not the favored and divinely-blessed youn^ men who come and go as they will, aud who have their pocket- case full of the best cigars, and who dine at Delmonico's, and who dress in the tip- top of fashion, their garments a little tighter or looser or broader striped than others, their mustaches twisted with stiffer cosmetic, and their hair redolent with costly pomatum, and have their hat set farthest over on the right ear, and who have boots fitting the foot with exquisite torture, and who have handkerchief soaked with musk, and patchouli, and white rose, and new-mown hay, and "balm of a thousand flow- ers;" but those are the fortunate young men who have to work hard for a living. Give a young man plenty of wines, and plenty of cigars, aud plenty of fine horses, and Satan has no anxiety about that man's coming out at his place. He ceases to watch him, only giving direc- tions about his reception when he shall arrive at the end of the journey. If, on the night of our exploration, I had called the roll of all the laboring men of these cities, I would have received no answer, for the simple reason
68
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY UFE.
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they were not there to answer. I was not more surprised at the people whom I saw there than I was surprised at the people whom I missed. Oh! man, if you have an occupation by which you are wearied every night of your life, thank God, for it is the mightiest preservative against evil. f , .. ' ;---■.:.;■::,/.•- v ;;•-■-. ^r^■^-v,;::■^v--■ , But by that time the clock of old Trinity Church was striking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve — midnight! And with the police and two elders of my church we sat down at the table in the galleries and looked oif upon the vortex of death. The music in full blast; the dance in wildest whirl; the wine foaming to the lip of the glass. Midnight on earth is midnoon in hell. All the demons of the pit were at that moment holding high carnival. The blue calcium light suggested the burning brimstone of the pit. Seated there, at that hour, in that awful place, you ask me, as I have frequently been asked, "What were the emotions that went through your heart?" And I shall give the rest of my morning's sermon to telling you how I felt. First of all, as at no death-bed or railroad disaster did I feel an overwhelming sense of pity. Why were we there as Christian explorers, while those lost souls were there as participators? If they had enjoyed the same healthful and Christian surroundings \^ inch we have had all our days, and we had been thrown amid the contamin- ations which have destroyed them, the case would ha^e been the reverse, and they would have been the specta- tors and we the actors in that awful tragedy of the damned. As' I sat there I could not keep back the tears — tears of gratitude to God for his protecting grace — tears of compassion for those who had fallen so low. The difference in moral navigation had been the difference in the way the wind blew. The wind of temp-
WHOM J
■^«V, AND WHOM I MISSED.
59
surprised 'prised at 1 have an ht of your eservative
hurch was sight, nine, ! police and able in the eath. The [; the wine >n earth is Dit were at iue calcium pit. Seated isk me, as I lie emotions all give the L how I felt, disaster did hy were we X souls were ed the same
we have had lc contamin-
would ha^e n the specta- agedy of the ^ep back the protecting
had fallen so
ad been the ^ind of temp-
tation drove them on the rocks. The wind of God's mercy drove us out on a fair sea. There are men and women so merciless in their criticism of the fallen that you might think that God had made them in an especial mold, and that they have no capacity for evil, and yet if they had been subjected to the same allure!nents, instead of stopping at the up-towu haunts of iniquity, they would at this hour have been wallowing amid the hor- rors of Arch Block, or shrieking with delirium tremens in the cell of a police station. Instead of boasting over your purity and your integrity and your sobriety, you had better be thanking God for his grace, lest some time the Lord should let you loose and you find out how much better you are than others naturally. I will take the best-tempered man in this house, the most honest man in this city, and I will venture the opinion in regard to him that, surround him with all the adequate circum- stances of temptation, and the Lord let him loose, he would become a thief, a gambler, a sot, a rake, a wharf- rat. Instead of boasting over our superiority, and over the fact that there is no capacity in us of ovil, I would rather have for my epitaph that one word which Duncan Matthewson, the Scotch evangelist, ordered chiseled on his tombstone, the name, and the one word, "Kept."
Again: Seated in that gallery of death, and looking out on that maelstrom of iniquity, I thought to myself, "There! that young man was once the pride of the city home. Paternal care watched him; maternal love bent over him; sisterly affection surrounded him. He was once taken to the altar and consecrated in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; but he went away. This very moment," J thought to myself, " there are hearts aching for that young man's return. Father and mother are sitting up
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.NIttHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
for li'.m." You say, "He has a night-key, and he c^n get in without their help. Why do not those pare'>t8 go sound to sleep?" What I Is there any sleep for parents who suspect a son is drifting up and down amid the dissipations of a great city? They may weep, they may pray, they may wring their hands, but sleep they cannot. Ah' they have done and suffered too much for that boy to give him up now. They turn up the light and look at the photograph of him when he was young and uniempted. They stand at the window to see if he is coming up the street. They hear the watchman's rattle, but no sound of returning boy. 1 felt that night as if I could put my hand on the shoulder of that young man, and, with, a voice that would sound all through those temples of sin, say to him, *'Go home, young man; your father is waiting for you. Your mother is waiting for you God is waiting for you. All heaven is wait- ing for you. Go home! By the tears wept over your waywardness, by the prayers offered for your salvation, by the midnight watching over you when you had scarlet fever and diphtheria, by the blood of the Son of God, by the judgment day when you must give answer for what you have been doing here to-night, go homei" But I did not say this, lest it interfere with my work, and I waited to get on this platform, where, perhaps, instead of saving one young man, God helping me, I might save a thousand young men; and the cry of alarm which I suppressed that night, I let loose to-day in the hearing of this people. -"::. ., :*.^-' ■ ; yi- •■■■■.^r-: ■'"^-
: Seated in that gallery of death, and looking off upon the destruction, T bethought myself also, "These are the fragments of broken homes." A home is a com- plete thing, and if one member of it wander off, then the home is broken. And sitting there, I said: " Here they
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WHOM I SAW, AND WITOM I MISSED.
61
d he CAU
sleep for >wn amid reep, they ileep they much for
I the light vas young ) see if he atchman's that night that young
II through 5ung man;
is waiting en is wait- over your r salvation, liad scarlet of God, hy er for what But 1 did id I waited id of saving a thousand suppressed •mg of this
ng off" upon "These are e is a com- off, then the " Here they
are, broken family altars, broken wedding-rings, broken vows, broken anticipations, broken hearts." And, as I looked off, the dance became wilder and more unre- strained, until it seemed as if the floor broke through and the revelers wero plunged into a depth from which they may never rise, and all these broken families came around the brink and seemed to cry out: " Come back, father! Come back, mother! Come back, my son! Come / back, my daughter ! Come back, my sister !" But no voices returned, and the sound of the feet of the dancers grew fainter and fainter, and stopped, and there was thick darkness. And I said, "What does lAl this mean?" And there came up a great hiss of whispering voices, saying, " This is the second death!"
But seated there that night, looking cS upon that scene of death, I bethought myself also, '* This is only a miserable copy of European dissipations." In London they have what they call the Argyle, the Cremorne, the Strand, the beer-gardens, and a thousand places of infamy, and it seems to be the ambition of bad people *;. in this country to copy those foreign dissipations. Toady- < ism when it bows to foreign pretense and to foreign • equipage and to foreign title is despicable; but toadyism is more despicable when it bows to foreign vice. Why, you might as well steal the pillow-case of a small-pox hospital, or the shovels of a scavenger's cart, or the coffin of a leper, aajto make theft of these foreign plagues. If you want to destroy the people, have some originality of destruction ; have an American trap to catch the bodies and souls of men, instead of infringing on the patented inventions of European iniquity.
Seated there that night, I also felt that if the good people of our cities knew what was going on in these haunts of iniquity, the^v would endure it no longer.
62
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
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The foundations of city life are rotten with iniquity, and if the foundations give way the wliole structure must crumble. If iniquity progresses in the next one hundred years in the same ratio that it has pro- gressed in the century now closed, there will not be a vestige of moral or religious influence left. It is only a question of subtraction and addition. If tlie people knew liow tlie virus is spreading they would stop it. I think the time has come for action. I wisli that the next Mayor of New York whether he be Augustus Schell or Edward Cooper, may rise up to the height of this posi- tion. Revolution is what we want, and that revolution would begm to-morrow if the moral and Christian peo- ple of our cities knew of the firee that slumher beneath them. Once in a while a glorious city missionary or reformer like Mr. Brace or Mr. Yan Meter tells to a well-dressed audience in church the troubles that lie under our roaring metropolis, and the conventional church-goer gives his five dollars for bread, or gives his fifty dollars to help support a ragged school, and then goes home feeling that the work is done. Oh! my friends, the work will not be accomplished until by the force of public opinion the officers of the law shall be compelled to execute the law. We are told that the twenty-five hundred police of New York cannot put down the five or six hundred dens of infamy, to say nothing of the gambling-houses and the unlicensed grog- shops. I reply, swear me in as a special police and give me two hundred police for two .nights, and I would break up all the leading haunts of iniquity in these two cities, and arrest all their leaders and send such conster- nation in the smaller places that they would shut up of themselves! I do not think I should be afraid of law- suits for damages for false imprisonment. What we
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iniquity, structure next one has pro- 11 not be It is only lie people stop it. I tt the next J SchcUor : this posi- revolution ristian peo- jer beneath issionary or • tells to a es that lie onventional or gives his ol, and then 3. Oh! my antil by the law shall be )ld that the
cannot put famy, to say censed grog- lice and give ,nd I would
in these two such conster- id shut up of kfraid of law- What we
want in these cities is a Stonewall Jackson's raid through all the places of iniquity T was persuaded by what I paw on that night of my exploration that the keepers of ail these hauntp of iniquity are as afraid aa they are of death of the police star, and the police club, and the police revolver. Hence, i declare that the existence of these alKJiniuations are to be charged either to police cowardice or to poiice complicity.
i^ ♦ the close of our journey that night, we got in the carriage, and we came out on Broadway, and a.« we came down the street everything seemed silent save the clatter ing hoofs'and the wheels of our own conveyance Look- ing dowr the long line of gaslights, the pavement seemed very solitary The great sea of metropolitan life had ebbed, leaving a dry beach! New York asleep! No! no! Burglary wide awake. Libertinism wide awake. Mur der wide awake. Ten thousand city iniquities wide awake. The click of the decanters in the worst hours of the debauch. The harvest of death full. Eternal woe the reaper.
What is tliat ? Trinity clock striking, one — two.
"Goodnight," said the officers of the law, and I re
leponded ''good night," for they had been very kind, and
[very generous and very helpful to us. "Good night."
[And yet, was there ever an adjective more misapplied?
rood night! Why, there was no expletive enough
irred and blasted to describe that night. Black night
i'orsaken night. Night of man's wickedness and woman's
?vertl)rcw Night of awful neglect on the part of those
tho might help but do not. For many of those whom
I'e had been watching, everlasting night. No hope.
lo rescue. No God. Black niglit of darkness forever,
LS fai off as hell is from heaven was that night distant
)m being a good night. Oh, my friends, what are you
64
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
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going to do in this matter ? Punisli the people ? That is not my theory. Prevent the people, warn the people, hinder the people before they go down. The first phi- lanthropist this country ever knew was Edward Living- ston, and he wrote these remarkable words in 1833:
" As prevention in the diseases of tlic body is les3 painful, less ex- pensive, and more efficacious than tlie most skillful cure, so in the moral maladies of society, to arrest the vicious before the profligacy assumes the shape of crime, to take away from the poor the cause or pretense of relieving themselves by fraud or theft, to reform them by education, and make their own industry contribute to their support, although difficult and expensive, will be found more ertectual intho suppression of offenses, and more economical, than the best organized system of punishment." .
Next Sabbath morning I shall tell you of my second night of exploration. I have only opened the door of this great subject with which I hope to stir the cities. I have begun, and, God helping me, I will go through. Whoever else may be crowded or kept standing, or kept outside the doors, I charge the trustees and the ushers of this church that they give full elbow-room to all these journalists, since each one is another church five times, or ten times, or twenty times larger than this august assemblage, and it is by the printing-press that the Gos- pel of the Son of God is to be yet preached to all the world. May the blessing of the Lord God come down upon all the editors, and all the reporters, and all the compositors, and all the proof-readers, and all the type- setters! " ' ■- ■ - ■ -'^ ■ - "■--•-' ''■
But, my friends, before the iniquities of our cities are closed, my tongue may be silent in death, and many who are here this morning may have gone so far in sin they cannot get back. You have sometimes been walking on the banks of a river, and you have seen a man struggling in the water, and you have thrown off
WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I M188>a).
66
yonr coat and leaped in for tlie rescue. So this morning I throw off the robe of pulpit conventions ty, and I plunge in for yonr drowning soul. I have no cross words for you. I havo only croas words for those who would destroy you. I am glad God lias not put in ray hand any one of tlio thunderbolts of His power, lest I might be tempted to hurl it at those who are plotting your ruin. I do not give you the tip end of the long lingers of the left hand, but I take your hand, hot with the fever of indulgences and trembling with last night's debauch, into both my hands, and give the heartiest grip of invitation and welcome. " Oil," you say, " you would not shake hands with me if yon met me." I would. Try mo at the foot of this platform and see if I will nOt. I have sometimes said that I would like to die with my hand in the hand of my family and my kin- dred; but I revoke that wish this morning and say I would like to die with my hand in the hand of a return- ing sinner, when, with God's help, I am trying to pull him up into the glorious liberty of the Gospel. I would like that to be my last work on earth. Oh! my brother, come back! Do you know that God made Richard Bax- ters and John Bunyans and Robert Newtonsout of such as you are? Come back! and wash in the deep fountain of a Savior's mercy. I do not give you a cup, or a chal- ice, or a pitcher vnih a limited supply to elfect j'^our ab- lutions. I point you to the five oceans of God's mercy. Oh I that the Atlantic and Pacific surges of divine for- giveness might roll over your soul. I do not say to you, as we said to the oflicers of the law when we left them on Broadway, "Good night." Oh, no. But, as the glorious sun of God's forgiveness rides on toward the mid heavens, ready to submerge you in warmtli and light and love, I bid you good morning! Morning of
VI
66
KIOHT BTDE8 OF OITr LITE.
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peace for all your troubles. Morning of liberation for all your incarcerations. Adorning oi resurrection for your soul buried in sin. Good morning! Morning for the resuscitated household that has been waiting for your return. Morning for the cradle and the crib already disgraced with being that of a drunkard's child. Morning for the daughter that has trudged off to hard work because you did not take care of home. Morning for the wife who at forty or fifty years has the wrinkled face, and the stooped shoulder, and tlie white hair. Morn- ing for one. Morning for all. Good morning I In God's name, good morning.
In our last dreadful war the Federals and the Con- federates were encamped on opposite sides of the Rappc.- hannock, and one morning vlie brass band of the Kcrth- ern troops played the national air, and all the Korthern troops cheered and cheered. Then on the opposite side of the Rappahannock the brass band of the Confederates played " My Maryland" and *' Dixie," and then all the Southern troops cheered and cheered. But after awhile one of the bands struck up " Home, Sweet Home," and the band on the opposite side of the river took up the strain, and when the tune was done the Confederates and the Federals a'^ together united, as the tears rolled down their cheeks, in one great huzza! huzza! Well, my friends, heaven comes very near to-day. It is ouiy a stream that divides us — tha narrow stream of death — and the voices there and the voices here seem to com- mingJe, lud we join trumpets, and hosannahs, and halle- lujahs, t,vA Jit, chorus of the united song of earth and heaven is, ^ Home, Sweet Home." Home of bright domestic circle on earth. Home of forgiveness in the groat heart of God. Home of eternal rest in heaven. Home! Home! Home!
TRAPS FOB MBH.
67
ition for jtion for ning for ting for the crib d's cliild. f toliard Morning wrinkled ir. Morn- ing I In
the Oon- he Rapp-- ;he Ncrth- 5 Northerii »posite Bide pnfederates hen all the fter awhile ome," and book up the onfederates tears rolled zza! Well, It is only of death— lern to com- 8, and halle- ,f earth and 0 of bright eness in the «t in heaven.
CHAPTER V.
TRAPS FOR MEN.
" Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." — Proverbs vi : 9.
Early in the morning I went out with a fowler to catch wild pigeons. We hastened through tlie mountaim gorge and into the forest. We spread out the net, and coverod up the edges of it as well as we could. We arranged the call-bird, its feet fast, and its wings flap- ping in invitation to all fowls of heaven to settle dov7n there. We retired into a booth of branches and leaves and waited. After a while, looking out of the door of the booth, we saw a flock of birds in the sky. They came nearer and nearer, and ai'ter a while were about to swoop into the net, when suddenly they darted away. Again we waited. After awhile we saw another flock of birds. They came nearer and nearer until jusl at the moment when thej were about to swoop they darted away. The fowler was very much disappointed as well as myself. We said to each other, '' What is the matter?" and " Why were not these birds caught?" We went out and examined the net, and by a flutter of a branch of a tree part of the net had been conspicuously exposed, and the birds coming very near had seen their peril and darted away. When I saw that, I said to the old fowler, **That reminds me of a passage of Scripture: * Surely iu vain is the net spread ir^ the sight of any bird.* " Now the net in my text stands for temptation.
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NIGHT fIDES OF CITY LIFE.
The call-bird of sin tempts men on from point to point and from branch to branch until they are aboat to drop into the net. If a man iinds out in time that it is the temptation of the devil, or that evil men are attempting to capture his soul for time and for eternity, the man steps back. He says, " I am not to be caught in that way: I see what you are about: surely in vain is tlie net spread in the sight of any bird."
There are two classes of temptations — the superficial and the subterraneous — those above ground, those under ground. If a man could see sin as it is, he would no more embrace it thaii he would embrace a leper. Sin is 8 daughter of hell, yet she is garlanded and robed and trinketed. Her voice is a warble. Her cheek is the setting sun. Her forehead is an aurora. She says to men: " Come, walk this path with me; it is thymed and primrosed, and the air is bewitiiUed with the odors of the hanging gardens of heaven ; the rivers are rivers of wine, and all you have to do is to drink them up in chalices that sparkl.e with diamond and amethyst and crysoprasus. See ! It is all bloom and roseate cloud and heaven." Oh! my friends, if for one moment the choiring of all these concerted voices of sin could be hushed, wo should see the orchestra of the pit with hot breath blowing through fiery flute, and the skeleton arms on drums of thunder and darkness beating tlie chorus: *' The end thereof is death."
I want this morning to i^oint out the insidious temp- tations that are assailing more especially our youu^ men. The only kind of nature comparatively free from tempta- tion, so far as I can judge, is the cold, hard, stingy, mean temperament. What would Satan do with such a man if lie got him? Satan is not anxious to get a man who, after a while, may dispute with liim the realm of ever-
TFAP8 FOE MBN.
69
to point to drop it is the Bmpting the man. , in that in is the
Liperficial )se under vould no r. Sin is obed and ek is the le says to ymed and J odors of rivers of icm up in thyst and eate cloud oment the could be with hot eton arms lie chorus:
iuus tcmp- oxiw^ men. (in cempta- iiigy, mean uch a man man who, Im of ever-
lasting meanness. It is the generous young man, the ardent young man, the warm-hearted youvg man, the social young man, that is in especial peril. A pirate goes out on the sea, and one bright morning he puts the glass to his eye and looks off, and sees an empty vessel floating from port to port. He says: "Never mind; that's no prize for us." But the same morning he puts the glass to his eye, and he sees a vessel coming from'Australia laden with gold, or a vessel from the Indies laden with spices. He says: "That's our prize; bear down on it!" Across that unfortunate ship the grappling-hooks are thrown. The crew are blindfolded and are compelled to walk the plank. It is not the empty vessel, but the laden merchant- man that is the temptation to the pirate, Anr^ a young man empty of head, empty of heart, empty of life — you want no Young Men's Christian Association to keep him safe; he is safe. He will not gamble unless it is with some- body else's stakes. He will not break the Sabbath unless somebody else pays the horse hire. He will not drink unless some one else treats him. He will hang around the bar hour after hour, waiting for some generous yoang man to come iv. The generous young man comes in and accosts hiL' ys: " Well, will you have a drink
with me to-day T lie man, as though it were a sudden thing for him, says: "Well, well, if you insist on it I will- 1 will."
Too mean to go to perdition unless somebody else )ays his expenses! For such young men we will not iight. We would no more contend for them than Tai'tary and Ethiopia would fight as to who should have the great Sahara Desert; but for those young men wlio are buoyant and enthusiastic, those who are determined to do something for time and for eternity — for them we Vf'iW fight, and we now declare everlasting war again^
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NIOUT 8IDE8 OF OITY LIFE.
all the influences that assail them, and we ask all good men and philanthropists to wheel into line, and all the armies of Heaven to bear down upon the foe, and we pray Almighty God that with the thunderbolts of his wrath he will strike down and consume all these influences that are attempting to destroy the young men for whom Christ died. »
The first class of temptations that assaults a young man is led on by the skeptic. He will not admit he is an infidel or atheist. Oh, no! he is a "freethinker;" he is one of your "liberal" men; he is free and easy in religion. O! how liberal he is; he so " liberal " that he will give away his Bible; he is so " libpral " that he will give a\\ay the throne of eternal justice; he is so "liberal" that he would be willing to give God out of the universe; he is so "liberal " that he would give up his own soul and the souls of all his friends. Now, what more could you ask in the way of liberality? The victim of this skeptic has probably just come from the country. Through the intervention of friends he has been placed in a shop. On Saturday the skeptic says to him, "Well, what are you going to do to-morrow?" He says, " I am going to church." "Is it possible?" says the skeptic. " Well, I used to do those things; I was brought up, I suppose, as you were, in a religious family, and I be- lieved all those things, but I got over it; the fact is, since I came to town I have read a great deal, and I have found that there are a great many things in the Bible that are ridiculous. Kow, for instance, all that about the serpent being cursed to crawl in the garden of Eden because it had tempted our first parents; why you see how absurd it is ; you crm tell from the very organiza- tion of the serpent that h had to crawl; it crawled before it was cursed just as well as it crawled afterwards; you
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TBI PS FOR MEN.
71
all good L(l all the i we pray his wrath ences that ■or whom
ouiig man i he is an er;" he is d easy in ,1 " that he ;hat he will 10 "liberal" le universe; is own soul more could tim of this le country, jeen placed liim, "Well,
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the skeptic, rought up, I ^, and 1 be- tact is, since and I have 11 the Bible that about den of Eden why you see gry organiza- awled before r wards; you
can tell from its organization that it crawled. Then all that story about the whale swallowing Jonah, or Jonah swallowing the whale, which was it? It don't make any difference, the thing is absurd; it is ridiculous to sup- pose that a man could have gone down through the jaws of a sea monster and yet kept his life; why, his respira- tion would have been hindered; he would have been digested; the gastric juice would have dissolved the fibrine and coagulated albumen, and Jonah would have been changed from prophet into chyle. Then all that story about the iniraculous conception — why, it is per- fectly disgraceful. O! sir, I believe in the light of nature. This is the nineteenth cen«tury. Progress, sir, progress. I don't blame you, but after you ha^.^e been in town as long as I have, you will think just as I do."
Thousands of young men are going down under that process day by day, and there is only here and there a young man who can endure this artillery of scorn. They are giving up their Bibles. The light of nature! They have the light of nature in China; they have it in Hin- dostan; they have it in Ceylon. Flowers there, stars there, waters there, winds there; but no civilization, no homes, no happiness. Lancets to cut, and Juggernauts to fall under, and hooks to swing on; but no happiness. I tell you, my young brother, we have to take a religion of some kind. We have to choose between four or five. Shall it be the Koran of the Mohammedan, or the Shaster of the Hindoo, or the Zendavesta of the Persian, or the Confucius writings of the Chinese, or the Holy Scriptures? Take what you will; God helping me, I will take the Bible. Light for all darkness; rock for all ^foundation; balm for all wounds. A glory thnt lifts its nllars of fire over the wilderness march. Do not give Inp your Bibles. If these people secitf at you as though
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religion and the Bible were fit only for weak-minded people, you just tell them you are not ashamed to be in the company of Burke the statesman, and llaphael the painter, and Thorwaldsen the sculptor, and Mozart the musician, and Blackstone the lawyer, and Bacon the philosopher, and Harvey the physician, and Jolm Milton the poet. A3k them what infidelity has ever done to lift the fourteen hundred millions of the race out of barbarism. Ask them when infidelity ever insti- tuted a sanitary commission; and, before you leavi; their society once and for ever, tell them that they luive in- sulted the memory of your Christian father, and spit upon the death-bed of your mother, and with swine's snout rooted up tlie grave of your sister who died believ- ing in the Lord Jesus.
Young man, hold on to your Bible? It is the best book you ever owned. It will tell you how to dress, how to bargain, how to walk, how to act, how to live, how to die. Glorious Bible! whether on parchment or paper, in octavo or duodecimo, on the center table of Uie draw- ing-room or in the counting-room of the banker. Glo- rious Bible! Light to our feet and lamp to our path. Hold on to it!
The second class of insidious temptations that comes upon our young men is led on by the dishonest employer. Every commercial establishment is a school. In nine cases out of ten, the principlcis of the employer become the principles of the employe. I ask the older mer- chants to bear me out in these statements. If, when you were just starting in life, in commercial life, you were told that honesty was not marketable, that though you might sell all the goods in the shop, you must not sell your conscience, t.liat while you were to exercise all industry and tact, you were not to sell your conscience —
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the best 3re88, how ^e, how to or paper, the draw- Br. Glo- onr path.
hat comes employer. In nine er become der mer- when you you were ough you it not sell erciee all iscience —
K vt TRAPS FOR MEN. •
if you were taught that gains gotten by sin were com- bustible, and atjtht moment of ignition would be blown on by the breath of God until all the splendic^ estate would vanish into white ashes scattered in the whirl- wind— then that instruction has been to you a precaution and a help ever since. There are hundreds of commer- cial establishments in our great cities which are edu- cating a class of young men who will be the honor of the land, and there are other establishments which are educating young men tu be nothing but 8h{irj)er8. What chance is there for a young man who was taught in an establishment that it is right to lie, if it is smart, and that a French label is all that is necessary to make a thing French, and that you ought always to be honest when it pays, and that it is wrong to steal unless you do it well? Suj^*)Ose, now, a young man just starting in life enters a place jf that kind where there are ten young men, all drilled in the infamous practices of the establishment. He is ready to be taught. The young man has no theory of commercial ethics. Where is he to get his theory? He will get the theory from his employers. One day he puslies his wit a little beyond what the establishment demands of him, and he fleeces a customer until tha clerk is on the verge of being seized by the law. What is done in the establishment? He is not arraigned. The head man of the establishment says to him: "Now, be careful; be careful, young man, you might be caught; but really that was splendidly done; you will get along in the world, I warrant you." Then that young man goes up until he becomes head clerk. He has found there is a premium on iniquity.
One morning the employer comes to the establishment. He goes into his counting-room and throws up hip, hands and shouts: "Why, the safe has been robbed I'"' What
74
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
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38 the matter? Nothing, nothing; only the clerk who had been practicing a good while on customers is prac- ticing a little on the employer. No new principle intro- duced into that establishment. It is a poor rule that will not work botli ways. You must never steal unless you can do it well. He did it well. I em not talking an abstraction ; I atn talking a terrible and a crushing fact.
Now here is a young man. Look at him to- day. Look at him five yetirs f?om now, after he has been under trial in such an establishment Here he stands in the shop to-duy, his cheeks ruddy with the breath of the hills. He unrolls the ^oods on the counter in gen- tlemanly style. He commends them to the purchaser. He points out all the good points in the fabric. He effects the sale. The goods are wrapped up, and he dis- misses the customer with a cheerful "good morning," and the country merchant departs so impressed with the straightforwardness of that young man that he will come again and again, every spring and every autumn unless interfered with The young man has been now in that establishment five years. He unrolls the goods on the counter. He says to the customer, "Now those are the best goods we have in our establishment;" they have bet- ter on the next shelf. He says! *'We are selling these goods less than co«t;" they are making twenty percent. He* says. 'There is nothing like them in all the city;" there are fifty shops that want to sell the same thing. He says: 'Now, that is a durable article, it will wash;" yes it will wash out. The sale is made, the goods are wrapped up, the country merchant goes off feeling that he has an equivalent for his money,, and the sharp clerk goes into the private room of the counting-house, and he says* "Well, I got rid of those goods at last; I really
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lerk who 3 Is prac- pleintro- rule that 3al unless )t talking crushing
n to- day. has been he stands breath of er in gen- purchaser, ibric. He md he dis- morning," ^d with the will come imn unless 3W in that 3ds on the 3se aie the sy liavc bet- jUing these ,y percent. L the city," iarne thing. ffWl wash;" goods are eeling that sharp clerk -house, and _8t; I leally
tbonght we never would sell them; I told him we were selling them less than cost, and he thought he was getting a good bargain; got rid of them at last." And the head of the firm says: "That's well done, splendidly done; let's go over to Delmonico's.'* Meanwhile, God had recorded eight lies — four lies against the young man, four lies against his employer, for I undertake to say that the employer is responsible for all the iniquities of hifi clerks, and all the iniquities of those who are clerks of these clerks, down to the tenth generation, if those eni- ployers inculcated iniquitous and damning principles. I stand before young men this morning who are under this pressure. 1 say, come out of it. "Oh I'* you say, "I can't; I have my widowed mother to support, and if a man loses a situation now he can't get anotlier one.'' 1 say, come out of it. Go home to your mother and say to her, "Mother, I can't stay in tliat shop and be upright; what shall I do?" and if she is worthy of you she will say, "Come out of it, my son — we will just throw our- selves on him who hath promised to be the God of the widow and the fatherless; he will take care of us," And I tell you no young man ever permanently suffered by such a course of conduct. In Pliiladelphia, in a drug shop, a young man said to his employer: "I want to please you, really, and I am willing to sell medicines on Sunday; but I can't sell this patent shoe-blacking on Sunday." "Well," said the head man, "yau will have to do it, or else you will have to go away." The young man said: "I can't do it; I am willing to sell medicines, but not shoe-blacking." "Well, then, gol Go now." The young man went away. The Lord looked after him. The hundreds of thousands of dollars lie won in this world were the smallest part of his fortune. God hon- ored him. Bv the course he took he saved his soul as
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76
l^IQHT BIDES OF CITY LIFK.
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well OB his fortnncB in the future. A man said to his
employer: "I can't wash the wagon on Sunday morning;
I am willing to wash it on Saturday afternoon; but, sir,
you will please excuse me, I can't wash the wagon on
Sunday morning." His employer said: "You must
wash it; my carriage comes in every Saturday night, and
you have got to wash it on Sunday morning." "I can't
do it," the man said. They parted. Tiie Lord looked
after him, grandly looked after him. He is worth to-duy
a hundred-fold more than his employer ever was or ever
will be, and he saved his soul. Young man, it is pafe to
do right. There are young men in this house to-day
who, nnder this storm of temptation, are striking deeper
and dwper their roots, and spreading out broader their
branches. Tliey are Daniels in Babylon, they are Josephs
in the Egyptian court, they are Pauls amid the wild
beasts at Ephesus. I preach to encourage them. Lay
hold of O d and be faithful.
There i t. mistake we make about young men. Wo put them in two classes: the one class is moral, the other is dissolute. The moral are safe The dissolute cannot be reclaimed. I deny both propositions. The moral are not safe unless they have laid hold of God, and the dis- solute may be reclaimed. I suppose there are self- righteous men in this house who feel no need of God, and will not seek after him, and they will go out in the world and they will be tempted, and they will be flung down by misfortune, and they will go down, down, down, until some night you will see them going home hooting, raving, shouting blasphemy— g^oing home to their mother, going home to their sister, going home to the young companion to whom, only a little while ago, in the pres- ence of a brilliant assemblage, flashing lights and orange blossoms, and censers swinging in the air, they promi8e<l
TRAPS FOB HEN.
77
said to his (rmornin|]^: II ; but, sir, wagon on You must ' night, and ' "I can't jord looked 'orth to-d;iy was or ev(M- it is Fafe to ouse to-day king deeper 'oader their are Josephs lid the wild them. Lay
men. We ■al, the other )hite cannot le moral are and the dis- re are self- eed of God, o out in the
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fidelity and purity, and kindness perpetual. As ihat man reaches the door, she will open it, not with an out- cry, but she will stagger back from the door as ho comes in, and in her look there will be the prophecy of woes that are coming: want that will shiver in need of a tire, hunger that will cry in vain for bread, cruelties that will not leave the heart when they have crushed it, but pinch it again, and stab it again, until some night she will open the door of the place where her companion was ruined, and she will tling out her arm from under her ragged shawl and say, with almost omnipotent eloquence, "Give me back my Jiusbandl Give me back my protectorl Give me back my all! Him of the kind heart arid gentle words, and the manly brow — give him back to mel" And then the wretches, obese and filthy, will push back their matted locks, and they will say, "Put her outT Put her out!" Oh I self-righteous man, without God you are in peril. Seek after him to-day. Amid the ten thousand temptations of life there is no safety for a man without God.
But I may be addressing some who have gone astray, and so I assault that other pioposition that the dissolute cannot be reclaijned. Perhaps you have only gone a little astray. While I speak are yoii troubled? Is there a voice within you saying, " Wiiat did you do that for? Why did you go there ? What did you mean by that ?'* Is there a memory in your soul that tnakes you tremble this morning ? God only knows all our hearts. Yea, if you have gone so far as to commit iniquities, and have gone through the whole catalogue, I invite you back this morning. The Lord waits for you. " Kejoice! O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth ; but know thou that for all these thin ^ God wUl bring thee into judgment.''
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HIOHt 8IDE8 OF OITY LIFi«.
Come home, young man, to your father's God. Oomo home, young man, to your mother's God. 01 I wish that all the batteries of the Gosj)el could to-day bo un- limbered asjainst all those influences wliicli are taking down 80 many of our young men. I would like to blow a trumpet of warning, and recruit until this whole audience would march out on a crusade against the evils of society. But let none of us be disheartened. O! Christian workers, my heart is high with hope. The dark horizon is blooming into the morning of which prophets spoke, and of which poets have dreamed, and of which painters have sketched. The world's bridal hour advances. The mountains will kiss the morning radiant and effulgent, and all the waves of the sea will become the crystal keys of a great organ, on which the fingers of everlasting joy shall play the grand march of a world redeemed. Instead of the thorn there shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar there shall come up the myrtle tree, and the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the wood shall clap their hands!
I
STBAKORRB WA&NKD.
d. Oomo )1 I wish lay be un^ ,re taking ke to blow his whole it the evils Lened. Ol lOpe. The of which samed, and Id's bridal e morning ;he sea will I which the d march of I shall come shall come hills shall the wood
ilr-t.^ t- 1.
CHAPTER VI.
STRANGERS WARNED.
**And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of iBTael."— 2Chron.il: 17.
If, in the time when people traveled afoot or on camel- back, and vacillation from city to city was seldom, it was important that Solomon recognize the presence of stran- gers, how much more important, now in these days, when by railroad and steamboat the population of the earth are always in motion, and from one year's end to the other, our cities are crowded with visitors. Every morn- ing, on the Hudson River railroad track, there come in, I think, about six trains, and on the New Jersey railroad track some thirteen passenger trains ; so that all the depots and the w^harves are a-rumble and a-clang with the coming in of a great immigration of strangers. Some of them come for purposes of barter, some for mechanism, some for artistic gratification, some for sight- seeing. A great many of them go out on the evening trains, and consequently the city makes but little im- pression upon tliem; but there are multitudes who, in the hotels and boarding-houses, make temporary resi- [dence. They tarry here for three or four days, or as jmany weeks. They spend the days in the stores and the evenings in sight-seeing. Their temporary stay will make or break them, not only financially but morally, for this world and the world that is to come. Multitudes of them come into our morning and evening services. I am conscious that I stand in the presence of many
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80
NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFK.
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of them now. I desire more especially to speak to them. May God give me the right word and help me to utter it in the right way.
There have glided into this house those unknown to others^ whose history, if told, would be more thrilling than the deepest tragedy, more exciting tlian Nilsson's song, more bright than a spring morning, more awful tl'.an a wintry midnight. If they could stand up here and tell the story of their escapes, and their temptations, and their bereavements, and their disasters, and their victories, and their defeats, there would be in this house ^ such a commingling of groans and acclamations as would make the place unendurable.
There is^a man who, in infancy, lay in a cradle satin- Lwod. There is a man who was picked up, a foundling, on Boston Common. Here is a man who is coolly ob- serving this day's service, expecting no advantage, an.l caring for no advantage for himself ; while yonder is a man who has been for tea years in an awful confla- gration of evil habits, and he 4 a mere cinder of a destroyed nature, and he is wo dering if there shall be in this service any escape or iielp for his immortal soul. Meeting you only once, perhaps, face jto face, I strike hands with you in an earnest talk about your presern- condition, and your eternal v/eu-being. St. Paul's siiip at Melita wert to pieces where two seas meet ; but we stand to-day at a point where a tliousand seas converge, and eternity alone can tell the issue of the hour.
The hotels of this country, for beauty and elegance, are not surpassed by the hotels in any otlier land ; but those that are most celebrated for brilliancy of tapestry and mirror cannot give t<- the guest any costly apart- ment, unless he can afford a parlor in addition to liis lodging. The stranger, therefore, will generally find as-
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81
signed to him a room without any pictures, and perhaps any rocking chair! He will find a box ot* matches o\\ A bureau .and an old newspaper left by the previous occu- pant, and that will be about all the ornamentation. At seven o'clock in the evening, after having taken his re- past, he will look over his men;orandum book of the day's work ; he will write a letter to his home, and then a desperation will seize u^un him to get out. You hear the great city thundering under your windows, and you say: " I must join that procession," and in ten minutes you have joined it. Where are you going? *' Oh," you fiay, "I haven't made up my mind yet." Better make up your mind before your start. Perhaps the very way you go now you wi. always go. Twenty years ago there were young men who came down the Astor flouse steps, and started out in a wrong direction, where they have been going ever since.
" Well, where are you going ?" says one man. " I am. going to the Academy to hear some music." Good. I would like to join you at the door. At the tap of the orchestral baton, all the gates of harmony and beauty will open before your soul. I congratulate you. Where are you going ? " Well,'' you say, " I am going up to see some advertised pictures." Good. 1 should like to go along with yo'.i and look over the same catalogue, aud study with you Kensett, and Bierstadt, and Church, and Moran. Nothing more elevating than good pictures. Where are yoti going ? " Well," you say, ** I am going up to the Young Men's Christian AssociaLion rooms." Good. You will find there gymnastics to strengthen the muscles, and books to improve the mind, and Chris- tian influence to save the soul. I wish every city in the LTnit^id States had as tine a palace for its Young Men's
Christian Association as New York has. Where are 6
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j^(9w going ? •' Well," you say, " I am going to take a long walk up Broadway, and so turn around into the Bowery. I am going to stody human life." Good. A walk through Broadway at eight o'clock at night is inter- esting, educating, fascinating, appalling, exhilarating to the last degree. Stop in front of tliat theater, and see who goes in. Stop at that saloon, and see who comes out. See the great tides of life surging backward and forward, and heating against the marble of the curbstone, and eddying down into the saloons. What is that mark on the face of that debauchee? It is the hectic flush of eternal death. Wi\at is that Woman's laughter ? It is the shriek of a lost soul. Who is that Christian man going along with a phial of anodyne to the dying pauper on Elm street? Who is that belated man on the way to a. prayer- meeting ? Wiio is that city missionary going to take a box in which to bury a child '^ Who are all these clusters of briglit and beautiful faces? They are going to some interesting place of amusement. Who i? thkt man going into the drug-store? That h the man who yesterday lost all Ids fortune on Wall street. He h going in for a dose of belladonna, and before morning it wilf. make no difference to him vhether stocks are up or down. 1 tell you that Broadway, between seven and twelve o'clock at nioht, between the Battery and Uniori- square, is an Austeriitz, a Gettysburg, a Waterloo, when) kingdoms are lost or won, and three worlds mingle in the strife.
I meet another coming down off tiie hotel steps, and 1 say: "'Where are you going?" You say: "I am going with a mercliant of New York who has promised to-night to snow me tl^. underground life of the city. 1 am his customer, aim he is going to oblige me verj much." Stop! A business house that tries to get or
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J to take a d into the Good. A lit is inter- larating U) er, and see who comes kward and 3 curbstone, i that mark itic flusli of iter ? It is •istian man ring pauper I the way to [>nary going \lio are all ? They are it. Who is IB the man street. He .re morning tocka are up n seven and and Uniovi- berloo, whero. iiingle in the
steps, and 1 Ly: *' I am las promised
the city. T ige me very ip8 to get or
keep your custom through such a process as that, is not worthy of you. There are business establishments in our cities which have for years been sending to eternal destruction hundreds and thousand;? of mercliants. They have a secret c rawer in the counter, where money is kept, and the clerk goes and get-^ it when he wants to take these visitors to the city through the low slums of the place. Shall I mention the names of some of these great cominorcial establishments? I have them on my lip- Bhail I ? Perhaps I had better leave it to the young men who, in tliat process, have been destroyed themselves while they have been destroying others. I care not how high-sounding the name of a commercial establishment if it proposes to get customers or to keep them by such a process as that; drop their acquaintance. They will cheat you before you get througii. They will send to you a style of goods diflerent from that which you bought by sample. They will give you under-weight. There will be in the packnge half-a-dozen less pairs of sus- penders than you paid for. They will rob you. Oh, you feel in your pockets and say: "Is my money gone ?" They have robbed you of something for which pounds and shillings can never give you compensation. When one of thece Western merchants has been dragged by one of these commercial agents through the slums of the city, he is not fit to go home. The mere memory of what he has seen will be moral pollution, unless he go on positive Christian errand. I think you had better let the city missionary and the police ani the Christian Jyeformer attend to the exploration of New York and derground life. You do not go to a small -pox hospital pr the purpose of exploration. You do not go thsre, cause you are afraid of the contagion. And yet, you into the presence of a moral leprosy that is as much
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more dangerous to you as the death of the soul is worse than the death of the body. I will undertake to say that nine-tenths of the men who have been ruined in our cities have been ruined by simply going to observe without any idea of participating. The fact is that underground city life is a filthy, fuming, reeking, pestiferous depth which may blast the eye that looks at it. In the Keign of Terror, in 1792, in Paris, people, escaping from the officers of the law, got into the sewers of the city, and crawled and walked through miles of that awful labyrinth, stifled with the atmosphere and almost dead, some of them, when they came out to the river Seine, where they washed thtrmselves and again breathed the fresh air. But I iiave to tell yon that a great many of the men who go on the work of exploration through the underground guttopi of New York life never come out at any Seine river where they can wash off the pollution of the moral sewerage. Stranger, if one of the "drummers" of the olty, as lliey are called — if one of the "drummers " pro- pose to take you and show you the " sights " of the town and underground New York, say to him: "Please, sir, what part do you propose to show me?"
Sabbath morning conies. You wake up in the hotel. You have had a longer sleep than usual. You say: "Where am I ? a thousand miles from home 1 I have no fainily to take to church to-day. My pastor will not expect my presence. I think I shall look over my accounts and study my memorandum-book. Then I will write a few business letters, and talk to that merchant who came in on the same train with me." Stop I you cannot afford to do it.
"But," you say, "I am wortli five b>»ndT^ thousand dollars." You cannot afford to do it You say: "I am worth a million dollars. " Yon caimot afford to do it. All
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from the ! city, and labyrinth, d, some of vhere they fresh air. B men who ierground any Seine the moral •8" of the lers" pro- f the town Mease, sir,
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you gain by breaking the Sabbath yon will lose. You will lose one of three things: your intellect, your morals, or your property, and you cannot point in the whole earth to a single exception to this rule. Grod gives us six days and kecpt one for himself Now if we try to get the seventh, he will upset the work of all the otiier six.
I remember going up Mount Washington, before the railroad had been built, to the Tip-Top House, and the guide would come around to our horse? and stop us when we were crossing a very steep and dangerous place, and he would tighten the girdle of the horse, and straighten the saddle. And 1 have to tell you that this road of life is so eteep and full of peril we must, at least one day in seven, stop and have the harness of life readjusted, and our souls re-equipped. The seven days of the week are like seven business ])artner8, and you must give to each one his share, or the business will be broken up. God is 80 generous with us ; he has given you six days to his one. Now, liere is a father who has seven apples, and he gives six to Iuh grnrwiy boy, proposing to keep one for himself. TIm^ g''eedy boy gt for the other ane and loses all the six.
How few men there are w! > know how to keep the Lord's day away from home. A great many who are con- sistent on the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the Alabama, or the Mi8si:?sippi, are not consistent when they get o far off as the Kast River. I repeat — though it is putting it on .a low ground — you cannot financially afford to break the Le>rd's day. It is only another way of tearing up yoar government securities, and putting down the price •of goods, and blowing uj) your store. I have friends who •re all the time slicing off ])iece8 of the Sabbath. They cut a little of the Sabbath off that end, and a little dI the Sab- bath off this end. They do not keep the twenty-four hours.
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The Bible says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." I have good friends who are quite accustomed to leaving Albany by the midnight train on Saturday night, and getting home before church. Now, there may be occasions when it is right, but generally it is wrong. How if the train should run off the track into the North River? I hope your friends will not send for me to preach your funeral sermon. It would be an awkward thing for me to stand up by your side and preach — you a Christian man killed on a rail-train traveling on a Sunday morn- ing. ** Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. " What does that mean? It means twenty-four hours. A man owes you a dollar. You don't want him to pay you ninety cents; you want the dollar. If God demands of us twenty-four hours out of the week, he means twenty- four hours and not nineteen. Oh, we want to keep vig- ilantly in this country the American Sabbath, and not have transplanted here the German or the French Sab- bath. If any of you have been in Paris you know that on Sabbath morning the vast population rush out toward the country with baskets and bundles, and toward night, they come back fagged out, cross, and intoxicated. May God preserve to us our glorious, quiet American Sab- baths.
And so men come to the verge of city life and say : " Now we'll look off. Gome, young man, don't be afraid. Come near, let's look off." He looks and looks, until, after a while, ^atan comes and puts a hand on each of his shoulders and pushes him off. Society says it is evil proclivity on the part of that young man. Oh, no, he was simply an exploror, and sacrificed his life in dis- covery. A young man comes in from the country brag- ging that nothing can do him any harm. He knows about all the tricks of city life. "Why," he says,
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is wrong. ) the North le to preach rd thing for a Christian iday raorn- p it holy. " four hours, him to pay od demands jans twenty- to keep vig- ith, and not French Sab- u know that li out toward oward night,
cated. May Qerican Sab-
fe and say : n't be afraid, looks, until, >n each of his ,ys it is evil Oh, no, he life in dis- ;onntry brag- He knows says, "didn't
STRANGERS WARNED.
87
I receive a circular in the country telling me that some- how they found out I was a sharp business man, and if I would only send a certain amount of money by mail or express, charges prepaid, they would send a package with which I could make a fortune in two months; but I didn't believe it. My neighborti did, but I didn't. Why, no man could take ray money. I carry it in a pocket inside my vest. No man could take it. No man could cheat me at the faro table. Don't I know all about the * cue- box,' and the 'dealer's-box,* and the cards stuck together as though they were one, and when to hand in my cheques? Oh, they can't cheat me. I know what I am about." While, at the same time, that very moment, such men are succumbing to the worst Satanic influences, in the simple fact that they are going to observe. Now, if a man or woman shall go down into a haunt of iniquity for the purpose of reforming men and women — if, as did John Howard, or Elizabeth Fry, or Van Meter, they go down among the abandoned for the sake of saving souls — or as did Chalme/s and Guthrie to see sin, that they might better combat it, then they shall be God-protected, and they will come out better than when they went in. But if you go on this work of exploration merely for the purpose of satisfying a morbid curiosity, I will take twenty per cent, off your moral character. O strangers, welcome to the great city. May you find Christ here, and not any physical or mo^-al damage. Men coming from inland, from distant cities, have here found God and found him in our service. May that be your case now. You thought you were brought to this place merely for the purpose of sight-seeing. Perhaps God brought 'ou to this roaring city for the purpose of working out our eternal salvation. Go back to your homes and tell lem how you met Christ here — the loving, patient, par-
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doning, and sympathetic Christ. Who knows but the city which has been the destruction of so many may be your eternal redemption?
A good many years ago, Edward Stanley, the English commander, with his regiment, took a fort. The fort was manned by some three hundred Spaniards. Edward Stanley came close up to the fort, leading his men, when a Spaniard thrust at him with a spear, intending to k destroy his life; but Stanley caught hold of the spear, " and the Spaniard in attempting to jerk the spear away from Stanley, lifted him up into the battlements. No sooner had Stanley taken his position on the battlements, $ than he swung his sword and his whole regiment leaped ■ up after him and the fort was taken. So may it be with ; you, O stranger. The city influences which have destroyed v so many and dashed them down for ever, shall be the means of lifting you up into the tower of God's mercy and strength, your soul more than conqueror through the grace of Him who hath promised an especial benediction to those who shall treat you well, saying : " I was a stranger and ye took me in."
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le Englisli iie fort was Edward men, when tending to : the spear, spear away nents. No ►attlements, lent leaped f it be with ra destroyed shall be the ■od's mercy through the 3enediction " T was a
PKDPLH TO BK FKAUHIK
89
CHAPTER VII.
PEOPLE TO BE FEARED.
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" Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do plack her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild bevist of the field doth devour it" — Psalms Izxx: 12,13.
By this lioinely but expressive figure, the text sets forth the bad influcncos which in olden time broke in upon God's heritage, sm with swine's foot trampling, and as with swine's snout uprooting he vineyards ot pros- perity. Wliat was true then is true now. There have been enough trees of righteousness planted to overshadow the whole earth, had it not been for the axe- men who hewed them down. The temple of truth would long ago have been completed, liad it not been for the icono- clasts who defaced the walls and battered down the pil- lars. The whole earth would have been an Eshcol of ripened clusters, had it not been that " the boar has wasted it and the vrild beast of the field devoured it."
I propose to point out to you those whom I conidder to be the uprooting and devouring classes of society. First, thepuhlio criminals. You ought not to be surprised that these ])eople make up a large portion in many com- munities. The vast majority of the crimiuals who take ship from Europe come into our own i)ort. In 1869, of the forty-nine thousand people who were incarcerated in the prisons of tl,e country, thirty-two thousand were of foreign birth. Many of them were the very desperadoes of society, ooziiig int^^ the slums of our cities, waiting
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for an opportunity to riot and steal and debaucl), joining the large gang of American thugs and cut-throats. There are in this cluster of cities — Now York, Jersey City, and Brooklyn — four thousand people whose entire busi- ness in life is to commit crime. That is as much their business as jurisprudence or medicine or merchandise is your business. To it they bring all their energies of body, mind, and soul, and they look upon the interreg- nums which they spend in prison as so much unfortunate loss of time, just as you look upon an attack of influenza or rheumatism which fastens you in the house for a few days. It is their lifetime business to pick pockets, and blow up safes, and shoplift, and ply the panel game, and they have as much pride of skill in their business as you have in yours when you upset the argument of an opposing council, or cure a gunshot fracture which other surgeons have given up, or foresee a turn in the market 80 you buy goods just before they go up twenty per cent. It is their business to commit crime, and I do not sup- pose that once in a year the thought of the immorality strikes them. Added to these professional criminals, American and foreign, there is a large class of men who are more or less industrious in crime. In one year the police in this cluster of cities arrested ten thousand people for theft, and ten thousand for assault and battery, and fifty thousand for intoxication. Drunkenness is responsible for much of the theft, since it confuses a man's ideas of property, and he gets his hands on things that do not belong to him. E-um is responsible for much of the assault and battery, inspiring men to sudden bravery, which they must demonstrate though it be on the face of the next gentleman.
Seven million dollars' worth of property stolen in this cluster of cities in one year. You cannot, as good
PEOl'LB TO BE FEARED.
91
, joining ,8. There iey City, :ire busi- uch their andise is lergies of interreg- tbrtunate influenza for a few jkets, and rume, and 388 as you !nt of an [lich other lie market r per cent. ) not Bup- mmorality criminals, men who B year the thousand id battery, ceniiess is jon fuses a on things nsible for to sudden ■li it be on
stolen m >t, as good
citizens, be independent of that fact. It will touch your pocket, since I have to give you the fact that these three cities pay seven million dollars' worth of taxes a year to arraign, try. and support the criminal population. You help to pay the board of every criminal, from the sneak- thief that snatches a spool of cotton, up to some man who enacts a " Black Friday." More than that, it touches your heart in the moral depression of the com- munity. You might as well think to stand in a closely confined room where there are fifty people and yet not breathe the vitiated air, as to stand in a community where there is such a great multitude of the depraved without somewhat being contaminated. What is the fire that burns your store down compared with the conflagration which consumes your morals? What is the theft of the gold and silver from your money safe compared with the theft of your children's virtue?
We are all ready to arraign criminals. We shout at the top of our voice, " Stop thief!" and when the police get on the track .'ecome out, hatless and in our slippers, and assist in the arrest. We come around the bawling ruffian and hustle him ofi"to justice, and when he gets in prison, what do we do for him? With great gusto we put on the handcuffs and the hopples; but what prepara- tion are we making for the day when the handcuff's and the hopples come off? Society seems to say to these criminals, " Villain, go in there and rot," when it ought to say, "You are an offender against the law, but we mean to give you an opportunity to repent; we mean to help you. Here are Bibles and tracts and Christian in- fluences. Clin'^t died for you. Look, and live."
Vast improvements have been made by introducing industries into the prison; but we want something more than hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim these people.
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Aye, we want more than sermons on the Sabbath day, Society must impress these men with the fact that it does not enjoy their suffering, and that it is attempt- ing to 'reform and elevate them. The majority of criminals suppose that society has a grudge against them, and they in turn have a grudge against society.
They are harder in heart and more infuriate when tiiey come out of jail than when they went in. Many of the people who go to prison go again and again and again. Some years ago, of fifteen hundred prisoners who during the year had been in Sing Sing, four hundred had been there before. In a house of correction in the country, where during a certain reach of time there had been five thousand people, more than three thousand had been there before. So, in one case the prison, and in the other case the house of correction, left them just as bad as they were before. The secretary of one of the benevolent societies of New York saw a lad fifteen j-ears of age who had spent three years of his life in prison, and he said to the lad, " What have they done for you to make you better?" " Well," replied the lad, " the first time I was brought up before the judge he said, ' You ought to be ashamed of yourself.' And then I committed a ciinie again, and I was brought up before the same judge, and he said, 'You rascal!' And after a while I committed some other crime, and I was brought before the same judge, and he said, * You ought to be hanged.' " That is all they had done for him in the wav of reformation and salva- tion. "Oh," you say, '* these people are incorrigible." I suppose there are hundreds of persons this day lying in the prison bunks who would leap up at the prospect of reformation, if society would only allow them a way into decency and respectability. "Oh," you say, " I have no ]>atience with these rogues." I ask you in reply, How
PEOPLE TO BE FEABED.
98
much better would you have been under the same circum- stances? Suppose your mother had been a blasphemer and your father a sot, and you had started life with a body stuffed with evil proclivities, and you had spent much of your time in a cellar amid obscenities and curs- ing, and if at ten years of age you had been compelled to go out and steal, battered and banged at night if you came in without any spoils, and suppose your early man- hood and womanhood had been covered with rags and filth, and decent society had turned its back upon you, and left you to consort with vagabonds and wharf-rats — how much better vrould you have been? I have no sym» patliy with that executive clemency which would let crime run loose, or which would sit in the gallery of a court-room weeping because some hard-hearted wretch is brought to justice; but I do say that the safety and life of the community demand more potential influences in behalf of public offenders.
Within five minutes* walk of where I now stand, there is a prison, enough to bringdown the wrath of Almighty God on this city of Brooklyn. It is the Raymond Street Jail. It would not be strange if the jail fever should start in that horrible hole, like that which raged in Eng- land dui "ng the session of the Black Assize, when three hundred perished — judges, jurors, constables, and law- yers. Alas, that our fair city should have such a pest- house. I understand the sheriff and the jail-keeper do all they can, under the circumstances, for the comfort of these people; but five and six people are crowded into a place where there ought to be but one or two. The air is like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. As the air swept through the wicket, it almost knocked me down. ' No sunlight. Young men who had committed their first crime crowded in among old offenders. I saw there
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94 NIGHT SIDES OF OITV LIFE.
one woman, with a child almost blind, who had been arrested for the crime of poverty, who was waiting until the slow law could take her to the almshouse, where she hghtfullj' belonged; but she was thrust in there with her child amid the most abandoned wretches of the town- Many of the offenders in that prison sleeping on the floor, with nothing but a vermin-covered blanket over them Those people crowded and wan and wasted and half suffocated and infuriated. I said to the men, "How do you stand it here?" "God knows,'* said one man, *-we have to stand it." Oh, they will pay you when they get out. Where they burned down one house they will burn three. They will strike deeper the assassin's knife. They are this minute plotting worse burglaries. Ray- mond Street Jail is the best place I know of to manu- facture foot- pads, vagabonds, and cut- throats. Yale College is not so well calculated to make scholars, nor Harvard so well calculated to make scientists, nor Prince ton so well calculated to make theologians, as Raymond Street Jail is calculated to make criminals. All that those men do not know of crime after they have been in that dungeon for some time, Satanic machination cannot teach, them. Every hour that jail stands, it challenges the Lord Almighty to smite this city. I ci*ll upon the ])eople to rise in their wrath and demand a reformation I call upon the judges of our courts to expose that infamy. I call upon the Legislature of the State of New York, now in session, to examine and appease that out- rage on God and human society. 1 demand, in behalf of those incarcerated prisoners, Iresh air and clear sun. light., and, in the name of him who had not where to lay his head, a couch to rest on at night. In the insuffer- able stench and sickening surroundings of that Raymond Street Jail there is nothing but disease for the body,
PBOPLB TO BB FEARED.
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idiocy for the mind, and death for the soul. Stifled air and darkness and vermin never turned a thief into an honest man.
We want men like John Howard and Sir William Blackstone, and women like Elizabeth Fry, to do for the prisons of the United States what those people did in other days for the prisons of England. I thank God for what Isaac T. Hopper and Dr. Wines and Mr. Harris and scores of others have done in the way of prison reform; but we want something more radical before upon this city will come the blessing of him who said : " I was in prison, and re came unto me."
Again, in this clabs '>f uprooting and devouring popu- lation are untrustworthy officials. " Woe unto thee, O land, when thy kings and child, and thy princes drink in the morning." It is a great calamity to a city when bad men get into public authority. Why was it that in New York there was such unparalleled crime between 1866 and 1871 ? It was because the judges of police in that city, for the most part, were as corrupt as the vagabonds that came before them for trial. Thos'^ were the days of high carniv.al for election frauds, assas- sination and forgery. We had the " Whisky Ring," and the "Tammany Ring," and the "Erie Ring." There was one man during those years that got one hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars in one year for serving the public. In a few years it was estimated that there were fifty millions of \ ^'blic treasure squandered. In those times the criminal had only to wink to the judge, or his lawyer would wink for him, and the question was decided for the defendant. Of the eight thousand people arrested in that city in one year, only tliree thousand were punished. These little matters were " fixed up," while the interests of society were "fixed c'.own." You
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mOHT SIDES OF CITY LIFK.
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know as weJl as I that a criminal who escapes only opens the door for other criminalities. When the two pick- pockets snatched the diamond pin from the Brooklyn gentleman in a Broadway stage, and the villains were arrested, and the trial was set down for the General Ses- sions, and then the trial never came, and never anything more was heard of the case, the public officials were only bidding higher for more crime. It is no compliment to public authority when we have In all ihe cities of the country, walking abroad, men and women notorions for criminality, unwhipped of justice. They are pointed out to you in the street day by day. There you find what are called the "fences," the men who stand between the thief and the honest man, sheltering the thief and at a great price handing over the goods to the owner to whom they belong. There you will find those who are called the "skinners," the men who hover around Wall street, with great sleight of hand in bonds and stocks. There you find the funeral thieves, the people who go and sit down and mourn with families and pick their pockets. And there you find the "confidence men,'* who borrow money of you because they have a dead child in the house and want to bury it, when they never had a house nor a family; or they want to go to England and get a large property there, and they want you lo pay their way, and they will send the money back by the very next mail. There are th^ "harbor thieves," the "shoplifters," the "pickpockets," famous all over the cities. Hundreds of them with their faces in the '^Rogues' Gallery," yet doing nothing for the last five or ton years but defraud society and escape justice. When these people go unarrested and unpunished, it is putting a high premium upon vice, and saying to the young criminals of this country, "What a safe thing it is
PEOPLE TO BE PEABBD.
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to be agTPat criminal," Let the law swoop upon them. Let it bo known in this country that crime will have no quarter, that the detectives are after it, that the police club is being brandished, that the iron door of the prison is bein^ opened, that the judge is ready to call on the case. Too great leniency to criminals is too great severity to society. When the President pardoned the wholesale dealer in obscene books he hindered the cru- sade against licentiousness; but when Governor Dix refused to let go Foster, the assassin, who was condemned to the gallows, he grandly vindicated the laws of God and the dignity of the State of New York.
Again: among the uprooting and devouring classes in our midst are the idle. Of course, I do not refer to peo- ple who are getting old, or to the sick, or to those who cannot get work ; but I tell you to look out for those ath- letic men and women who will not work. When the French nobleman was asked why he kept busy when he had so large a property, he said, " I keep on engraving so I may not hang myself." I do not care who the man is, you cannot afford to be idle. It is from the idle classes that the criminal classes are made up. Character, like water, gets putrid if it stands still too long. Who can wonder that in this world, where there is so much to do, and all the hosts of earth and heaven and hell are plung- ing into the conflict, and angels are flying, and God is at work, and the universe is a-quakf -vith the march- ing and counter-marching, that God le his indignation fall upon a man who chooses idleness ? I have watched these do-nothings who spend their time stroking their beard, and retouching their toilette^ and criticising industrious people, and pass their days and nights in bar- rooms and club houses, lounging and smoking and chew- ing and card-paying. They are not only useless, bnt they 7
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NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
are dangerous. How hard it is for them to while awaj the hours?
Alas ! for them. If they do not know how to while away an hour, what will they do when they have all eternity on their hands ? These men for a while smoke the best cigars, and wear the best broadcloth, and move in the highest spheres; but I have noticed that very soon they come down to the prison, the almshouse, or stop at the gallows.
The police stations of this cluster of cities furnisli annually two hundred thousand lodgings. For the most part, these two hundred thousand lodgings are furnished to able-bodied men and women — people as able to work as you and I are. When they are received no longer at one police station, because they are "repeaters,'^ they go to some other station, and so they keep moving around. They get their food at house doors, stealing what they can lay their hands on in the front basement while the servant is spreading the bread in the back basement. They will not work. Time and again, in the country districts, they have wanted hundreds and thousands of laborers. These men will not go. They do not want to work. I have tried them. I have set them to sawing wood in my cellar, to see whether they wanted to work. I offered to pay them well for it. I have heard the saw going for about three minutes, and then I went down, and lo, the wood, but no saw ! They are the pest of so- ciety, and they stand in the way of the Lord's poor, who ought to be helped, and must be helped, and will be helped. While there are thousands of industrious men who cannot get any work, these men who do not want any work come in and make that plea. I am in favor of the restoration of the old-fashioned whipping-post for just this one class of men who will not work; sleeping at
PEOrLE T(3 BB FEARED.
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1 away
e away ternity le best in the u they at the
furnish tie most rnished bo work nger at they go around, lat they hile the isement. country lands of want to sawing ;o work, the saw t down, lat of so- lor, who will be >U8 men lot want favor of post for seping at
night at public expense in the station house; during the day, getting their food jit your door-siep. Imprison- ment does not scare them. They would like it. Blaok- welPs Island or Sing Sing would be a comfortablehome for them. They would have no objection to the alniH- liouse, for they like thin soup, if they cannot get mock- turtle. I propose this for them: on one side of them put some healthy work; on tlie other side put a raw-hide, and let them take their choice. I like for that class of peo- ple the scant bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the Thessalonian loafers: *'If any work not, neither should he eat." By what law of God or man is it right that you and I should toil day in and day out, until our hands are blistered and our arms ache and our brain gets num))? and tlien be called upon to support what in the United States are about two million loafers'^ They are a very dangerous class. Let the public authorities keep their eves on them.
Again: among the uprooting classes I place the op- pi'essed poor. Poverty to a certain extent is chastening; but after that, when it drives a man to the wall, and he hears his children cry in vain for bread, it sometimes^ makes him desperate. I think that there are thousands of honest men lacerated into vagabondism. There are men crushed under burdens for which they are not half paid. While there is no excuse for criminality, even in oppres- sion, T state it as a simple fact that much of the ecoun- drelism of the community is consequent upon ill-treat- ment. There are many men and women battered and bruised and stung until the hour of despair has come, and they stand with the ferocity of a wild beast which, pur- sued until it can run no longer, turns round, foaming and bleeding, to fight the hounds.
There is a vast underground New York ana Brooklyn
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NIOUT 8IDK8 OF CITY LIFK.
life that is appalling and shameful. It wallows and
steams with putrefaction. You go down the stairs,
which are wet and decayed with filth, and at the bottom you
find the poor victims on the floor, cold, sick, three-fourths
dead, slinking into a fetill darker corner under the gleam
of the lantern of the police. There has not been a breath
of fresh air in that room for five years, literally. The
broken sewer empties its contents upon them, and they
lie at night in the swimming filth. There they are, men,
women, children; blacks, whites; Mary Magdalen with- out her repentance, and Lazarus without his God !
These are " the dives " into which the pick-pockets and the thieves go, as well as a great many who would like a different life but cannot get it. These places are the sores of the city, which bleed perpetual corruption. They are the underlying volcano that threatens us with aCaraccas earthquake. It rolls and roars and surges and heaves and rocks and blasphemes and dies. And there are only two outlets for it: the police court and the Potter's Field, m other words, they must either go to prison or to hell. Oh, you never saw it yoa say. You never will see it until on the day when those staggering wretches shall come up in the light of the judgment throne, and while all hearts are being revealed God will ask you what you did to help them.
There is another layer of poverty and destitution, no- so squalid, but almost as helpless. You hear the inces- sant wailing for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes are sunken. Their cheek-bones stand out. Thei** hands are damp with slow consumption. Their flesh is puffed up with dropsies. Their breath is like that of the char- nel-house. They hear the roar of the wheels of fashion over head, and the gay laughter of men and maidens, and wonder why God gave to others so much and to them so
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PEOPLE TO BE FBARKD.
101
ve, and stairs, oin you fourths 3 gleam I breath 7. The id they •e, men, n with- i God I
:et8 and id like a lie sores rhey are [yaraccas [ heaves are only •'s Field. • to hell. 3 it until ill come 7hile all , you did
pion, no- lle inces- leir eyes li»* hands Is puifed Ihe char- fashion ^ens, and them so
little. Some of them thrust into an infidelity like that of the poor German girl who, when told in the midst of her wretchedness that God was good, said; "No, no good God. Just look at me. No good God."
In this cluster of cities, whose cry of want I this day interpret, there are said to be, as far as I can figure it uj) from the reports, about two hundred and ninety thous. and honest poor who are dependent upon individual, city, and state charities. If all their voices could come up at once, it would be a groan that would shake the founda- tions of the city, and brins: ^-^ earth and heaven to the rescue. But, for the most part, it suffers unexpressed. It sits in silence, gnasljing its teeth, and sucking the blood of its own arteries, waiting for the judgment day. Oh, I should not wonder if on that day it would be found out that some of us had some things that belonged to them; some extra garment which might have made them comfortable in these cold days; some bread thrust into the ash-barrel that might have appeased their hunger for a little while; some wasted candle or gas-jet that might have kindled up their darkness; some fresco on the ceiling that would have given them a roof; some jewel which, brought to that orphan girl in time, might have kept her from being crowded off the precipices of an unclean life; some New Testament that would have told them of him who " 3ame to seek and save that which was lost." Oh, this wave of vagrancy and hunger and nakedness that dashes against our front door step; I wonder if you hear it and see it as much as I hear it and see it. " This last week I liave been almost frenzied with the perpetual cry for help from all classes and from all nations, knocking, knocking, ringing, ringing, until I dare not have more than one decent pair of shoes, nor more than one decent coat, nor more than one decent
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hat, lest in the last day it be found that T have some- thing that belongs to them, and Christ shall turn to me and spy: " Inasmuch as ye did it7i6>^to theee, ye did it not to me." If the roofs of all the houses of destitution could be lifted so we could look down into them just as God looks, whose nerves would be strong enough to stand it? And yet there thoy are. The forty-five thous- and sewing- women in these three cities, some of them in hunger and cold, working night after night, until some- times the blood spurts from nostril and lip. How well their grief was voiced by that despairing woman who Btood by her invalid husband and invalid child, and said to the city missionary: ^'I am down-hearted. Every- thing's against us ; and then there are other things.'* *' What other things?" said the city missionary. '• Oh," she replied, " my sin." '* What do you mean by that?" " Well," she said, " I never hear or see anything good. It's work from Monday morning to Saturday night, and then when Sunday comes I can't go out, and I walk the floor, and it makes me tremble to think that I have got to meet God. O sir, it's so hard for us. We have to work 80, and then we have so much trouble, and then we are getting along so poorly; and see this wee little thing- growing weaker and weaker; and then to think we arc not getting nearer to God, but floating away from him. O sir, I do wish I was ready to die."
I should not wonder if they had a good deal better time than we in the future, to make up for the fact tha^ they had such a bad time here. It would be just like Jesus to say: "Come up and take the highest seats. You suffered with me on earth ; now be glorified with me in heaven." O thou weeping One of Bethany! O thou dying One of the cross! Have mercy on the starv- ing, freezing, homeless poor of these great cities! ^ ;;
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PEOl'LE TO BK FKARED.
J 03
I have T^reaclied tliis Bermon for four or five practical reasons: Because I want yoii to know who are the up- rooting classes of society. Because I want you to be juoro discriminating in your charities. Because I want your hearts open with generosity, and your Ijands open with charity. Because I want you to be made tlie sworn friends of all city evangelization, and all new8bo3'8' lodging houses, and all Howard Mitsions, and Children's Aid Societies. Aye, I have preached it because I want you this week to send to the Dorcas Society all the cast- off clothing, that under the skillful manipulation of our wives and mothers and sisters and daughters, these gar- ments may be fitted on the cold, bare feet, and on the shivering limbs of tlie destitute. I should not wonder if that liat that you give should corne back a jeweled coronet, of if that garment that you this week hand out from your wardrobe should mysteriously be whitened, and somehow wrought into the Savior's own robe, so in the last day he would run his hand over it, and say: " I was naked, and ye clothed me." That would be putting your garments to glorious uses.
But more than that, I have preached the sermon be- cause I thought in the contrast you would see how very kindly God had dealt with you, and I thought that thousands of you would go to-day to your comfortable homes, and sit at your well-filled tables, and at the warm registers, and look at the round faces v " your children, and that then you would burst into teai^ at the review of God's goodness to you, and that you would go to your room this afternoon and lock the door, and kneel down, and say: ''O Lord, I have been an ingrate; make me thy child. O Lord, there are so many hungry and un- clad and unsheltered to-day, I thank thee that all my life thou hast taken such good care of me. O Lord, there
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NTGHT 8IDBS OF CITY LIFE.
are so many sick and crippled children to-day, I thank thee mine are well, some of them on earth, some of them in heaven. ' Thy goodness, 0 Lord, breaks rae down. Take mo once, and forever. Sprinkled as I was many years ago at the altar, while my mother held me, now I consecrate my soul to thee in a holier baptism of repent- ing tears.
" For sinners, Lord, Thou cam'st to bleed, And I'm a sinner vile iudecd ; Lord, 1 believe Ttiy grace is free, O megnify that grace in lae. " -
,-t
THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF.
106
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CHAPTER VIII.
; , ; THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF.
" And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it."— Exodus xxxli: 20.
People will have a god of some kind, and they prefer one of their own making. Here come the Is^'aelites, breaking off their golden earrings, the men as well as the women, for in those times there were masculine as well as feminine decorations. Where did they get these beautiful gold earrings, coming up as they did from the desert? Oh, they "borrowed" them of the Egyptians when they left Egypt. These earrings are piled up into a pyramid of glittering beauty. " Any more earrings to bring ?" says Aaron. None. Fire is kindled ; the earrings are melted and poured into a mold, not of an eagle or a war charger, but of a calf ; the gold cools off; the mold is taken away, and the idol is set up on its four legs. An altar is built in front of the shining calf. Then the people throw up their arms, and gyrate, and shriek, and dance mightily, and worship. Moses has been six weeks on Mount Sinai, and he comes back and hears the howling and sees the dancing of these golden- calf fanatics, and he loses his patience, and he takes the two plates of stone on which were written the Ten Com- mandments and ilings them so hard against a rock that they split all to pieces. When a man gets mad he is very apt to break all the Ten Commandments! Moses rushes in and he takes this calf-god ar.d throws it into a
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NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
hot tire, until it is melted all out of shape, and then pulverizes it — not by the modern appliance of nitro- iruiriatic acid, but by the ancient appliance of nitre, or by the old-fashioned file. He makes for the people a most nauseating draught. He takes this pulverized golden calf and throws it in the only brook which is ac- cessible, and the people are compelled to drink of that brook or not drink at all. But they did not drink all the glittering stuff thrown on the surface. Some of it flows on down the surface of the brook to the river, and then flows on down the river to the sea, and the sea takes it up and bears it to the mouth of all the rivers, and when the tides setback, the remains of this golden calf are car- ried up into the Hudson, and the East river, and the Thames, and the^ Clyde, and the Tiber, and men go out and they skim the glittering surface, and they bring it ashore and they make another golden CLif, and California and Australia break off their golden earrings to augment the pile, and in the fires of financial excitement and struggle all these things are melted together, and while we stand looking and wondering what will come of it, lo! we find that the golden calf of Israelitish worship jias become the golden calf of European and American worship.
I shall describe to you the god spoken of in the text, his temple, his altar of sacrifice, the music that is made in his temple, and then the final breaking up of the whole congregation of idolaters, r ; ^ r:^; i ;. ?- ,.- ,
Put aside this curtain and you see the golden calf of modern idolatry. It is not like other idols, made out of stocks or stone, but it h^ an ear so sensitive that it can hear the whispers on Wall street and Third street and State street, and the footfalls in the Bank of England, and the flutter of a Frenchman's heart on the Bourse.
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THE WORSillP OF THE GOLDEN CALF.
107
It has an eye so keen that it can see the rust on the farm of Michigan wheat and the insect in the Maryland peach-orchard, and the trampled grain under the hoof of the Kussiar war charger. It is so mighty that it swings any way it will the world's shipping. It lias its foot on all the merchantmen and the steamers. It started the American Civil War, and under God stopped it, and it will decide the Turko-Russian contest. One broker in September, 1869, in New York, shouted, "One hundred and sixty for a million!" and the whole continent shiv- ered. This golden calf of the text has its right front foot in New York, its left front foot in Chicago, its right back foot in Charleston, its left back foot in New Orleans, and when it shakes itself it shakes the world. Oh! this is a mighty god — the golden calf of the world's worship.
But every god must have its temple, and this golden calf of the text is no exception. Its temple is vaster than St. Paul's of the English, and St. Peter's of the Italians, and the Alhambra of the Spaniards, and the Parthenon of the Greeks, and the Mahal Taj of the Hindoos, and all the other cathedrals put together. Its pillars are grooved and fluted with gold, and its ribbed arches are hovering gold, and its chandeliers are descend- ing gold, and its floors are tesselated gold, and its vaults are crowded heaps of gold, and its spires and domes are soaring gold, and its organ pipes are resounding gold, and its pedals are tramping gold, and its stops pulled out are flashing gold, while standing at the head of the temple, as the presiding deity, are the hoofs and shoul- ders and eyes and ears and nostrils of the calf of gold.'
Further: every god must have not only its temple, br.t its altar of sacrifice, and this golden calf of the text is no exception. Its altar is not made out ef stone as other altars, but out of countiug-roora desks and fire-proof
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NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFK.
safes, and it is a broad, a long, a high altar. The vic- tims sacrificed on it are the Swartouts, and the Ketchanis, and the Fisks, and the Tweeds, and the Mortons, and ten ; thousand other people who are slain before thh golden calf What does this god care about the groans and struggles of tlie victims before it? With cold, metallic eye it looks on and yet lets them suffer. Oh! heaven and earth, what an altar! what a sacrifice of body, mind, and soul! The physical health of a great multitude is flung on this sacrificial altar. They cannot sleep, and they take chloral and morphine and intoxicants. Some of them struggle in a nightmare of stocks, and at one o'clock in the morning suddenly rise up shouting: "A thousand shares of New York Central— one hundred and eight and a-half ! take it!" until the whole family is affrighted, and the speculators fall back on their pillows and sleep until they are awakened again b}- a " corner " in the Pacific Mail, or a sudden ^'rise" of Rock Island. Their nerves gone, tlieir digestion gone, their brain gone, they die. The clergyman comes in and reads the funeral service: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Mistake. They did not "" die in the Lord;" the golden calf kicked them! : ,
The trouble is, when men sacrifice themselves on this altar suggested in the text, they not only sacrifice them- selves, but they sacrifice their families. If a man by an ill course is determined to go to perdition, I suppose you will have to let him go; but he puts his wife and children in an equipage that is the amazement of the avenues, and the driver lashes the horses into two whirl- winds, and the spokes flash in the sun, and the golden -, headgear of the harness gleams, until Biack Calamity takes the bits of the horses and stops them, and shouts to the luxuriant occupants of the equipage: "Get out!"
THK WOKSilir OF TUK GULDEN OALF.
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They get oat. They get down. That husband and father flung his family so hard they never got up again. There was the mark on them for life — the mark of a split hoof— the death-dealing hoof of the golden calf. '
Solomon offered in one sacrifice, on one occasion, twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep; but that was a tame sacrifice compared with the multitude of men who are sacrificing them- selves on this altar of the golden calf, and sacrificing their families with them. The soldiers of General Kavelock, in India, walked literally ankle deep in the blood of the " house of massacre," where two hun- dred women and children had been slain by the Sepoys; but the blood around about this altar of the golden calf flows up to the knee, flows to the girdle, flows to the shoulder, flows to the lip. Great God of heaven and earth, have mercy I The golden calf has none.
Still the degrading worship goes on, and the devotees kneel and kiss the dust, and count their golden beads, and cross themselves with the blood of their own sacri- fice. The music rolls on under the arches; it is made of clinking sUver and clinking gold, and the rattling specie of the banks and brokers' shops, and the voices of all the exchanges. The soprano of the worship is carried by the timid voices of men who have just begun to speculate; while the deep bass rolls out from those who for ten years of iniquity have been doubly damned. Chorus of voices rejoicing over what they have made. Chorus of voices wailing over what they have lost. This temple of which I speak stands open day and night, and there is the glittering god with his four feet on broken hearts, and there i-s tlie smoking altar of sac- rifice, new victims every moment on it, and there are the kneeling devotees; and the doxology of the worship
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110 *i NIGHT HIDK8 OB' CITY LIFE.
rolls on, while Death stands with mould v and skeleton arm beating time for the chorus — "More! more! more!"
Some people are very much surprised at the actions of folk in the Stock Exchange, New York. Indeed, it is a scene sometimes that paralyzes description, and is beyond the imagination of any one who has never looked in. What snapping of finger and thumb and wild ges- ticulation, and raving like hyenas, and stamping like buffaloes, and swaying to and fro, and jostling and run- ning one upon another, and deafening uproar, until tlie president of the Exchange strikes with his mallet four or five times, crying, "Order! order!" and the aston- ished spectator goes out into the fresh air feeling that he has escaped from pandemonium. What does it all mean? I will tell you what it means. The devotees of every heathen temple cut themselves to pieces, and yell and gyrate. This vociferation and gyration of the Stock Exchange is all appropriate. This is the worship of the golden calf. •
But my text suggests that this worship must be broken up, as the behavior of Moses in my text indicated. There are those who say that this golden calf spoken of in my text was hollow, and merely plated with gold; otherwise, they say, Moses could not have carried it. I do not know that; but somehow, perhaps by the assist- ance of his friends, he takes up this golden calf, which is an open insult to God and man, and throws it into the fire, and it is melted, and then it comes out and is cooled off, and by some chemical appliance, or by an old-fash- ioned file, it is pulverized, and it is thrown into the brook, and, as a punishment, the people are compelled to drink the nauseating stuff. So, my hearers, you may depend upon it that God will bum and he will grind to pieces the golden calf of modern idolatry, and he will
THK WORSHIP OF THIS GOLPEN CALF.
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compel the people in their agony to drinic it. It* not before, it will be so on the last day. I know not where the fire will begin, whether at the " Battery " or Central Park, whether at Fulton Ferry or at Bushwick, whether it Shoreditch, London, or West End ; but it will be a very hot blaze. All the Gove'*nment securities of the United States and Great Britain will curl up in the first blast. All the money safes and depositing vaults will melt under the first touch. The sea will burn like tinder, and the shipping will be abandoned forever. The melt- ing gold in the broker's window will burst through the melted window-glass and info the street; but the fiying population will not stop to scoop it up. The cry of "Fire" from the mountain will be answered by the cry of " Fire " in the plain. The confla.gration will burn out from the continent toward the sea, and then biirn in from the sea toward the land. New York and London with one cat of the red scythe of destriictioi» will go down. Twenty-five thousand miles of conflagration! The earth will wrap itself round and round in shroud of flame, and lie down to perish. What then will become of your golden calf? Who then so poor as to worship it? Melted, or between the upper and the nether mill- stone of falling mountains ground to powder. Dagori down. Moloch down. Juggernaut down. Golden calf
down. -■■■-■■^-- ':-' " :M..' ..V -.-■;■■;•■-'■ :. '.■'^',.
But, my friends, every day is a day of judgment, and God is all the time grinding to pieces the golden calf. Merchants of New York and London, what is the char- acteristic of this time in which we live ? "Bad," you say. Professional men, what is the chiaracteristic of the times in which we live ? " Bad," you say. Though I should be in a minority of one, I venture the opinion that tliese are the best times we have had in fifteen
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years, for the reason that God is teach v.ig the world, aa never before, that old-fashioned honesty is the only thing that will stand. In the past few months we have learned as never before that forgeries will not pay; that the watering of stock will not pay; that the spending of ufipr thousand dollars on country seats and a palatial city resi- dence, when there are only thirty thousand dollars income, will not pay; that the appropriation of trust funds to our own private speculation will not pay. We had a great na- tional tumor, in the shape of fictitious prosperity. We called it national enlargement; instead of calling it en- largement, we might better have called it a swelling. It has been a tumor, and God is cutting it out — has cut it out, and the nation will get well and will come back to the principles of our fathers and grandfathers when twice three made six instead of sixty, and when the apples at the bottom of the barrel were just as good as the apples on the top of the barrel, and a silk handkerchief was not half cotton, and a man who wore a five-dollar coat paid for wtis more honored than a man who wore a fifty-dollar coat not paid for.
The golden calf of our day, like the one of the text, is very apt to be made out of borrowed gold. These Israelites of the text borrowed the earrings of the Egyp- tians, and then melted them into a god. That is the way the golden calf is made nowadays. A great many housekeepers, not paying for the articles they get, bor- row of the grocer and the baker and the butcher and the dry-goods seller. Then the retailer borrows of the whole- sale dealer. Then the wholesale dealer borrows of the capitalist, and we borrow, and borrow, and borrow, until the community is divided into two classes, those who ' borrow and those who are borrowed of; and after a" while the capitalist wants his money and he rushes upon
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the wholesale dealer, and the wholesale dealer wants his money and he rushes upon the retailer, and the retailer wants his money and he rushes upon the consumer, and we all go down together. There is many a man in this day who rides in a carriage and owes the blacksmith for the tire, and the wheelwright for the wheel, and the trimmer for the curtain, and the driver for unpaid wages, and the harness- maker for the bridle, and the furrier for the robe, while from the tip of the carriage tongue clear back to the tip of the camel's-hair shawl fluttering out of the back of the vehicle, e: eryt' 'n^ is paid for by noteft that have been three times renewed. <• '■'^'^ ^ '-n
I tell you, sirs, that in this country we will never get things right until we stop borrowing, and pay as we go. It is this temptation to borrow, and borrow, and borrow, that keeps the people everlastingly praying to the golden calf for help, and just at the minute they expect the help the golden calf treads on them. The judgments of God, like Moses in -the text, will rush in and break up this worship; and I say, let the work go on until every man shall learn to speak truth with his neighbor, and those who make engagements shall feel themselves bound to keep them, and when a man who will not repent of his business iniquity, but goes on wishing to satiate his can- nibal appetite by devouring widows' houses, shall, by the law of the land, be compelled to exchange the brown stone front on Madison Avenue or Beacon Hill for New- gate or Sing Sing. Let the golden calf perish ! ^ - ^- --^
But, my friends, if we have made this world our god, when we come to die we will see our idol demolished. How much of this world are you going to take with you into the next ? Will you have two pockets — one in each side of your shroud? Will you cushion your coffin with bonds and mortgages and certificates of stock? Ah I no 8
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The ferry- at that crosses this Jordan takes no baggage — nothing heavier than a spirit. You may, perhaps, take five hundred dollars with you two or three miles, in the shape of funeral trappings, to Greenwood, but you will have to leave them there. It would not be safe for you to lie down there with a gold watch or a diamond ring; it would be a temptation to the pillagers. Ah, my friends I if we have made this world our god, when we die we will see our idol ground to pieces by our pillow, and we will have to drink it in bitter regrets for the wasted opportunities of a lifetime. Soon we will be gone. 01 this is a fleeting world, it is a dying world. A man who had worshiped it all his days in his dying moment described himself when he said: ** Fool I fool I fooU"
I want you to change temples, and to give up the wor- ship of this unsatisfying and cruel god for the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the gold that will never crumble. Here are securities that will never fail. Here are banks that will never break. Here is an altar on which there has been one sacrifise once for all. Here is a God who will comfort you when you are in trouble, and soothe you when you are sick, and save you when you die. When your parents have breathed their last, and the old, wrinkled, and trembling hands can no more be put upon your head for a blessing, he will be to you father and mother both, giving you the defense of the one and the comfort of the other ; and when your children go away from you, the sweet darlings, you will not kiss them good-by for ever. He only wants to hold them for you a little while. He will give them back to you again, and he will have them all waiting for you at the gates of eternal welcome. Oh! what a God he is! He will allow you to come so close this morning that you can
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put your arms around his neck, while he in response will put his arms around your neck, and all the windows of heaven will be hoisted to let the redeemed look out and see the spectacle of a rejoicing Father and a returned prodigal locked in glorious embrace. Quit worshiping the golden calf, and bow this day before him in whose presence we must all appear when the world has turned to ashes and the scorched parchment of the sky shall be rolled together like an historic scroll.
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' DRY.GOODS RELIGION.
"Wh08e adorning, lot it not be putting on of apparel." —
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My subject is dry-goods religion. That we should all be clad, is proved by the opening of the first ^wardrobe in Paradise, with its apparel of dark green. That we should all, as far as our means allow us, be beautifully and grace- fully appareled, is proved by the fact that God never made a wave but he gilded it with golden sunbeams, or a tree but he garlanded it with blossoms, or a sky but he studded it with stars, or allowed even the smoke of a furnace to ascend but he columned and turreted and domed and scrolled it into outlines of indescribable gracefulness. When I see the apple-orchards of the spring and the pageantry of the autumnal forests, I come to the conclusion that if nature ever does join the Church, while she may be a Quaker in the silence of her worship, she never will be a Quaker in the style of her dress- Why the notches of a fern leaf, or the stamen of a water lily? Why, when the day departs, does it let the folding- doors of heaven stay open so long, when it might go in so quickly? One summer morning I saw an army of a million spears, each one adorned with a diamond of the first water — I mean the grass with the dew on it. When the prodigal came home his father not only put a coat on his back, but jewelry on his hand. Christ wore a beard. Paul, the bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any sentimentality, admired the arrangement of a woman's
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hair when he said, in his opistie, " if a woman have long hair, it is a glory unto her." There will be fashion in heaven as on earth, but it will be a different kind of fashion. It will decide the color of the dress ; and the population of that country, by a beautiful law, will wear white. I say these things as a background to my ser- mon, to show you that I have no prim, precise, prudish, or cast-iron theories on the subject of human apparel. But the goddess of fashion has set up her throne in this couiitvy, and at the sound of the timbrels we are all ex- pected to fall down and worship. The old^ and new tes- tament ol her bible are Madame DemoresVs Magazine and Harper^ s Bazar. Her altars smoke with the sac- rifice of tho bodies, minds, and souls of ten thousand vic- tims. In her temple four people stand in the organ-loft, and from them there comes down a cold drizzle of music, freezing on the ears oi her vvorshipers. This goddess of fashion has become a rival of the Lord of heaven and earth, and it is high time that we unlimbered our bat- teries against this idolatry. When I come to cqunt the victims of fashion I find as many masculine as feminine. Men make an easy tirade against woman, as though she were the chief worshiper at this idolatrous shrine, and no doubt some men in the more conspicuous part of the pew have already cast glances at the more retired part of the pew, their look a prophecy of a generous distribu- tion to others of the more cogent parts of my discourse. My sermon shall be as appropriate for one end of the pew as for the other.
Men are as much the idolaters of fashion as women, but they sacrifice on a different part of the altar. With men, the fashion goes to cigars and club-rooms and yacht- ing parties and wine suppers. In the United States the men chew up and smoke one hundred millions of dol-
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lars' worth of tobacco every year. That is their fashion. In London, not long ago, a man died who started in life with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he ate it all up in gluttonies, sending his agents to all parts of the earth for some rare delicacy for the palate, some- times one plate of food costing him three or four liun- dred dollars. He ate up his whole fortune, and had only one guinea left; with that he bought a woodcock, and had it dressed in the very best style, ate it, gave two hours for digestion, then walked out on Westminster Bridge and threw himself into the Thames, and died, doing on a large scale what you and I have often seen done on a small scale. But men do not abstain from millinery and elaboration of skirt through any superi- ority of humility. It is only because such appendages would be a blockade to business. What would sashes and trains three and a half yards long do in a stock mar- ket? And yet man are the disciples of fashion just as much as women. Some of them wear boots so tight they can hardly walk in the paths of righteousneas And there are men who buj expensive suits of clothes and never pay for them, and who go through the streets in great stripes of color like ani mated checker-boards. Then there are multitudes of men who, not satisfied with the bodies the Lord gave them, are padded so that their shoulders shall be square, carrying around a small cot- ton plar.tation. And I understand a great many of them now paint their eyebrows and their lips, and I have heard from ^ood authority that there are multitudes of men in Brooklyn and ]^ew York — men— things have got to such an awful pass — multitudes of men wearing corsets! I say these things because I want to show you that I am impartial in my discourse, and that both sexes, in the language of the Surrogrte's oflfice, shall "share and share
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alike." As God may help me, I shall show you what are the destroying and deathfiil influences of inordinate fashion.
The first baleful influence I notice is in fraud, ill- imitable and ghastly. Do yen know that zVrnold of the Revolution proposed to sell his country in order to get money to support his wife's wardrobe? I declare here before God and this people that the effort to keep up expensive establishments in this country is sending more business men to temporal perdition than all other causes combined. What was it that sent Gilman to the penitentiary, and Philadelphia Morton to the watering of stocks, and the life insurance presidents to perjured statements about their assets, and has completely upset our American finances? What was it that overthrew Belknap, the United States Secretary at Washington, the crash of whose fall shook the continent? But why should I go to these famous defaultings to show what men will do in order to keep up great home style and expensive wardrobe, when you and I know scores of men who are put to their wit's end, and are lashed from January to December in the attempt. Our Washington politicians may theorize until the expiration of their terms of oflBce as to the best way of improving our monetary condition in this country; it will be of no use, and things will be no better until we learn to put on our heads, and backs, and feet, and hands no more than we can ]->ay for.
There are clerks in stores and banks on limited sal- aries, who, in the vain attempt to keep the wardrobe of their family as showy as other folk's wardrobes, are dying of muffs, and diamonds, and camel's hair shawls, and high ^hats, and they have nothing left except what they give to cigars and w.ne 8U]»pers. and they die before their time and they will expect us ministers to preach
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about them as though they were the victims oi early piety, and after a high-class funeral, with silver handles at the side of their coffin, of extraordinary brightness, it will be found out that the undertaker is cheated out of his legitimate expenses ! Do not send to me to preach the funeral sermon of a man who dies like that. I will blurt out the whole truth, and tell that he was strangled to death by his wife's ribbons 1 The country is dressed to death. You are not surprised to find that the put- ting up of one public building in New York cost mil- lions of dollars more than it ought to have cost, when you find that the man who gave out the contracts paid more than five thousand dollars for his daughter's wed- ding dress. Cashmeres of a thousand dollars each are not rare on Broadway. It is estimated that there are five thousand women in these two cities who have ex- pended on their personal array two thousand dollars a
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What are men to do in order to keep up such home wardrobes? Steal — that is the only respectable thing they can do! During the last fifteen years theru have been innumerable fine businesses shipwrecked on the wardrobe. The temptation comes in this way: A man thinks more of his family than of all the world outside, and if they spend the evening in describing to him the superior wardrobe of the family across the street, that they cannot bear the sight of, the man is thrown on his gallantry and his pride of famil^^ and, without translat- ing his feelings into plain language, he goco into extor- tion and issuing of false stock, and skillful penmanship in writing somebody else's name at the foot of a prom- issory note; and they all go down together — tlije husband to the prison, the wife to the sewing machine, the chil- dren to be taken care of by those who wore called poor
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relations. 01 for some new Shakespeare to arise and write the tragedy of human clothes.
Act the first of the tragedy. — A plain but beautiful home. Enter, the newly-married pair. Enter, sim- plicity of manner and behavior. Enter, as much hap- piness as is ever found in one home.
Act the second. — Discontent with the humble home. Enter, envy. Enter, jealousy. Enter, desire of display.
Act the third. — Enlargement of expenses. Erter, all the queenly dressmakers. Enter, the French milliners.
Act the fourth. — The tip-top of society. Enter, princes and princesses of New York life. Enter, magnificent plate and equipage. Enter, everything splendid.
Act the fifth, and last. — Winding up of the scene. Enter, the assignee. Enter, the sheriff. Enter, the creditors. Enter, humiliation. Enter,, the wrath of God- Enter, the contempt of society. Enter, death. Now, let the silk curtain drop on the stage. The farce is ended, and the lights are out.
Will you forgive me if I say in tersest shape possible that some of the men in this country have to forge and to perjure and to swindle to pay for their wives' dresses? I will say it, whether you forgive me or not!
Again, inordinate fashion is the foe of all Christian alms-giving. Men and women put so much in personal display that they often have nothing for God and the cause of suffering humanity. A Christian man cracking his Palais Royal glove across the back by shutting up his hand to hide the one cent he puts into the poor-box! A Christian woman, at the story of the Hottentots, cry- ing copious tears into a twenty-five dollar handkerchief, and then giving a two-cent piece to the collection, thrusting it down under the bills so people will not know but it was a ten-dollar gold ])iece! One hundrc^d
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dollars for incense to fashion. Two cents for God. God gives us ninety cents out of every dollar. The other ten centd by command of His Bible belong to Him. Is not God liberal according to this tithing system laid down in the Old Testament — is not God liberal in giving us ninety cents out of a dollar, when he takes but ten? "We do not like that. We want to have ninety-nino cents for ourselves and one for God.
Now, I would a great deal rather steal ten cents from you than God. I think one reason why a great many people do not get along in worldly accumulation faster is because they do not observe this divine rule. God says: "Well, if that man is not satisfied with ninety cents of a dollar, then I will take the whole dollar, and I will give it to the man or woman who is honest with me." The greate.st obstacle to charity in the Christian clinrch to-day is the fact that men expend so much money on their table, and women so much on their dress, they have got nothing leftfcr the work of God atd the world's betterment. In my first settlement at E'^lle- ville, Kew Jersey, the cause of missions was being pre- sented one Sabbath, and a plea for the charity of the people was being made, when an old Christian man in the audience lost his balance, and said right out in the midst of the sermon : " Mr. Talmage, how are we to give liberally to these grand and glorious causes when our families dress as they do?" I did not answer that question. It was the only time in my life when I had nothing to say!
Again, inordinate fashion is distraction to public wor- ship. You know very well there are a good many peo- ple who come to church just as they go to the races, to see who will come out first. What a flutter it makes in church when some woman witli extraordinary display of
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fashion comes in. "What a love of a bonnet I" says someone. "What a perfect fright 1" say five hundred. For the most merciless critics in the world are fashion critics. Men and women with souls to be saved passing the hour in wondering where that man got his cravat, or what store that woman patronizes. In many of our churches the preliminary exercises are taken up with the discussion of wardrobes. It is pitifuie. Is it not won- derful that the Lord does not strike the meeting-houses with lightning! What distraction of public worship! Dying men and women, whose bodies are soon to be turned into dust, yet before three worlds strutting like peacocks, the awful question of the soul's destiny sub- merged by the question of Creed more polonaise, and navy blue velvet and long fan train skirt, long enough to drag up the church aisle, the husband's store, office, shop, factory, fortune, and the admiration of half the people in the building. Men and women come late to church to show their clothes. People sitting down in a pew or taking up a hymn book, all absorbed ut the same time in personal array, to sing:
'* Rise, my bouI, and stx^tch thy wings. '.'. -J ;. ' V Thy better portion trace ; ;, , - Rise from transitory things,
Toward heaven, tiiy native place I"
I adopt the Episcopalian prayer and say: " Good Lord deliver us!"
Insatiate fashion also belittles the intellect. Our minds are enlarged or they dwindle just in proportion to the importance of the subject on which we constantly dwell. Can you imagine anything more dwarfing to tlie human intellect than the study of fashion? I see men on the street who, judging from their elaboration, I tliink must h.*^e taken two hours to arrange their
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apparel. After a few years of that kind of absorption, which one ox McAllister's magnifying glasses will be powerful enough to make the man's character visible? What will be left of a woman's intellect after giving years and years to the discussion of such questions as the compcifison between knife-pleats and box-pleats, and borderings of grey fox fur or black martin, or the com- parative excellence of circulars of repped Antwerp silk lined with blue fox fur or with Hudson Bay sable? They all land in idiocy. I have seen men at the summer water- ing-places, through fashion the mere wreck of wha^ they once were. Sallow of cheek. Meagre of limb. Hollow at the chest. Showing no animation save in rushing across a room to pick up a lady's fan. Simpering along the corridors, the same compliments they simpered twenty years ago. A New York lawyer last summer at United States Hotel, Saratoga, within our hearing, . rushed across a room to say to a sensible woman, " You are as sweet as peaches!" The fools of fashion are myriad. Fashion not only destroys the body, but it makes idiotic the intellect. v>. f; ^ .-',
Yet, my friends, I have given you only the milder phase of this evil. It shuts a great multitude out of heaven. The first peal of thunder that shook Sinai declared: '* Thou shalt have no other God before me," and you will have to choose between the goddess of fashion and the Christian God. There are a great many seats in heaven, and they are all easy seats, but not one seat for the devotee of fashion. Heaven is for meek and quiet spirits. Heaven is for those who think more of their souls than of their bodies. Heaven is for those who have more joy in Christian charity than in dry- goods religion. Why, if you with your idolatry of fashion should somehow get into heaven, you would be
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for putting a Freuch roof on the " house of many man- sions," and making plaits and Hamburg embroidery and flounces in the robes, and you would be for intro- ducing the patterns of Butterick's Quarterly Delineator. Give up this idolatry of fashion, or give up heaven. What would you do standing beside the Countess of Huntington, whose joy it was to build chapels for the poor, or with that Christian woman of Boston, who fed fifteen hundred children of the street at Faneuil Hall on New Year's Day, giving out as a sort of doxology at the end of the meeting a pair of shoes to each one of them; or those Dorcases of modern society who have conse- crated their needles to the Lord, and who will get eternal reward for every stitch they take. O! men and women, give up the idolatry of fashion. The rivalries and the competitions of such a life are a stupendous wretched- ness. You will always find some one with brighter array and with more palatial residence, and with lavender kid gloves that make a tighter fit. And if you buy this thing and wear it you will wish you had bought some- thing eleo and worn it. And the frets of such a life will bring the crows' feet to your temples before they are due, and when you come to die you will have a miserable time. I have seen men and women of fashion die, and I never saw one of them die well. The trappings off, there they lay on the tumbled pillow, and there were just two things that bothered them — a wasted life and a com- ing eternity. I could not pacify them, for their body» mind, and soul, had been exhausted in the worship of fashion, and they could not appreciate the gospel. When I knelt by their bedside they were mumbling out their regrets and saying, " O God I O GodI" Their garments hung up in the wardrobe, never again to be seen by them. Without any exception, so far as my memory serves mo,
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they died without hope, and went into eternity unpre- pared. The two most ghastly death-beds on earth are the one where a man dies of delirium tremens, and the other where a woman dies after having sacrificed all her faculties of body, mind, and soul in the worship of fashion. My friends, we must appear in judgment to answer for what we have worn on our bodies as well ais for what repentances we have exercised witli our souls. On that day I see coming in Beau Brummel of the last century, without his cloak, like which all England got a cloak; and without his cane, like which all England got a cane; without his snuif-box, like which all England got a snuff-box — he, the fop of the ages, particular about everything but his morals; and Aaron Burr, without the letters that down to old age he showed in pride, to prove his early wicked gallantries; and Absalom without his hair; and Marchioness Pompadour without her titles; and Mrs. Arnold, the belle of Wall street, when that was the center of fashion, without her fripperies of
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And in great haggardness they shall go away into eternal expatriation ; while among the queens of heaven- ly society will be found Yashti, who 'wore the modest veil before the palatial bacchanalians; and Hannah, who annually made a little coat for Samuel at the temple; and Grandmother Lois, the ancestress of Timothy, who imi- tated her virtue ; and Mary, who gave Jesus Christ to the world; and many of you, the wives and mothers and sisters and daughters of the present Christian Church, who through great tribulation are entering into the kingdom of God. Christ announced who would make up the royal family of heaven when he said, " Whoso- ever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother, my sister, my mother."
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CHAPTEK X.
THE RESERVOIRS SALTED.
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" And the men of the city said unto Elislia, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as mv Lord sceth ; but the water is naught, and the ground barren And he said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said. Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters ; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren laud. So the waters were healed unto this day."— 2 Kings ii : 19-32.
It is difficult to estimate how mncli of the prosperity and health of a city are dependent upon good water. The day when, through well-laid pipes and from safe reservoir, an abundance of water, from Croton or Eidge- wood, is brought into the city, is appropriately celebrated with oration and pyrotechnic display. Thank God every day for clear, bright, beautiful, sparkling water, as it drops in the shower, or tosses up in the fountain, or rushes out at the hydrant.
The city of Jericho, notwithstanding all its physical and commercial advantages, was lacking in this impor- tant element. There was enough water, but it was dis- '^«^8ed, and the people were crying out by reason thereof. Elisha the prophet comes to the rescue. He says: " Get me a new cruse; fill it with salt and bring it to me." So the cruse of salt was brought to the prophet, and I see him walking out to the general reservoir, and he takes that salt and throws it into the reservoir, and lot all the impurities depart, through a supernatural and
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divine influence, and the waters are good and fresh and clear, and all the people clap their hands and lift up their faces in their gladness. Water for Jericho — clear, bright, beautiful, God-given water I
For several Sabbath mornings I have pointed out to you the fountains of municipal corruption, and this morning I propose to show you w^^«t are the means for the rectification of those fountaiub. There are four or five kinds of salt that have a cleansing tendency. So far as God may help me this morning, 1 shall bring a cruse of salt to the work, and empty it into the great reservoir of municipal crime, sin, shame, ignorance, and abomina- tion.
In this work of cleansing our cities, I have first to re- mark that the7'e is a work for the broom and the shovel that nothing else can do. There always has been an inti - mate connection between iniquity and dirt. The filthy parts of the great cities are always the most iniquitous parts. The gutters and the pavements of the Fourth Ward, New York, illustrate and symbolize the character of the people in the Fourth Ward. ;- The first thing that a bad man does when he is con- verted is thoroughly to wash himself. There were, this morning, on the way to the different churches, thousands of men in proper apparel who, before their conversion, were unfit in their Sabbath dress. When on the Sab- bath I see a man uncleanly in his dress, my suspicions in regard to his moral character are aroused, and the}^ are always well founded. So as to allow no excuse for lack of ablution, God has cleft the continents with rivers and lakes, and has sunk five great oceans, and all the world ought to be clean. Away, then, with the dirt from onr cities, not only because the physical health needs an ablution, but because all the great moral and religions
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interests of the cities demand it as a positive necessity. A filthy city always has been and always will be a wicked city.
Another corrective influence that we would bring to bear upon the evils of our great cities is a CM'isiian printing -p7'e88. The newspapers of any place are the test of its morality or immorality. The newsboy who runs along the street with a roll of papers under his arm is a tremendous force that cannot be turned aside nor resisted, and at his every step the city is elevated or de- graded. This hungry, all-devouring American mind must have something to read, and upon editors and authors and book-publishers and parents and teachers rest the responsibility of what they shall read. Almost every man you meet has a book in his hand or a news- paper in his pocket. What book is it you have in your hand? What newspaper is it you have in your pocket f Ministers may preach, reformers may plan, philan- thropists may toil for the elevation of the suffering and the criminal, but until all the newspapers of the land and all the booksellers of the land set themselves against an iniquitous literature — until then we will be fighting against fearful odds. Every time the cylinders of Har- per or Appleton or Ticknor or Peterson or Lippincott turn, they make the earth quake. From them goes forth a thought like an angel of light to feed and bless the world, or like an angel of darkness to smite it with cor- ruption and sin and shame and death. May God by His omnipotent Spirit purify and elevate the American printing-press I i-'.m&kL
I go on further and gay that we must depend upon the school for a great deal of correcting influence. Com- munity can no more afford to have ignorant men in its midst than it can afford to have uncaged hyenas. Tgnpr- 9
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ance is the mother of hydra-headed crime. Thirty-one per cent, of all the criminals of New York State can neither read nor write. Intellectual darkness is generally the precursor of moral darkness. 1 know there are edu- cated outlaws — men who, through their sharpness of in- tellect, are made more dangerous. They use their fine penmanship in signing other people's names, and their science in ingenious burglaries, and their fine manners in adroit libertinism. They go their round of sin with well-cut apparel, and dangling jewelry, and watches of eighteen karats, and kid gloves. They are refined, edu- cated, magnificent villains. But that is the exception- It is generally the case that the criminal classes are as ignorant as they are wicked. For the pi<>of of what I Bay, go into the prisons and the penitentiaries, and look upon the men and women incarcerated. The dishonesty in the eye, the low passion in the lip, are not more con- spicuous than the ignorance in the forehead. The igno- rant classes are always the dangerous classes. Dema- gogues marshal them. They arc helmless, and are driven before the gale.
It is high time that all city and State authority, as well as the Federal Government, appreciated the awful sta- tistic that while years ago in this country there was set apart forty-eight millions of acres of land for school pur- poses, there are now in New England one hundred and ninety-one thousand people who can neither read nor write, and in the Statv^ of Pennsylvania two hundred and twenty-two thousam^ who can neither read nor write, and in the State of New York two hundred and forty- one thousand who can neither read nor write, while in the United States there are nearly six millions who can neither read nor write. A statistic enough to stagger and confound any man who loves his God and his country.
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intry.
Now, in view of thi« fact, I am in fjivor of oompntsory education. The Eleventh ward, in New York, has five thousand children who are not in school. When parents are so bestial as to neglect this duty to the child, I say the law, with a strong hand, at the same time with a gentle hand, ought to lead these little ones into the light of intelligence and good morals. It was a beautiful tab- leau when in our city a few weeks ago, a swarthy police- man having picked up a lost child in the street, was found appeasing its cries by a stick of candy he had bought at the apple-stand. That was well done, and beautifully done. But, ohi these thousands of little ones through our streets, who are crying for the bread of knowledge and intelligence. Shall we not give it to them ? The officers of the law ought to go down into the cellars, and up into the garrets, and bring out these benighted lit- tle ones, and put them under educational infijences; after they have passed through the bath and under the comb, putting before them the spelling-book, and teaching them to read the Lord's Prayer and the sermon on the Mount : "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Cur city ought to be father 2.vA mother both to these outcast little ones. As a recipe for the cure of much of the woe and want and crime of our city, I give the words which Thorwaldsen had chiseled on the open scroll in the hand of the statue of John Gutenberg, the inventor of the art of printing: " Let there be light I" Still further: reformatory societies are an important element in the reotifioation of tJi^ public fountains. "Without calling any of them by name, I refer more especially to. those which recognize the physical as well as the moral woes of the world. There was pathos and a great deal of common sense in what the poor woman said to Dr. Guthrie when he was telling her what a very
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good woman she ought to be. " Oh," she said, " if you were as hungry and cold as I am, you could think of nothing else." I believe the great want of our city is the Gospel and something to eat I Faith and repentance are of infinite importance; but they cannot satisfy an empty stomach I You have to go forth in this work with the bread of eternal life in your right hand, and the bread of this life in your left hand, and then you can touch ^hem, imitating the Lord Jesus Christ, who first broke the bread and fed the multitude in the wilderness, and then began to preach, recognizing the fact that while people are hungry they will not listen, and they will not repent. "We want more common sense in the distribu- tion of our charities; fewer magnificent theories, and more hard work. In the last war, a few hours after the battle of Antietam, I had a friend who was moving over the field, and who saw a good Christian man distributing tracts. My friend said to him: " This is no time to dis- tribute tracts. There are three thousand men around here who are bleeding to death, who have not had ban- dages put on. Take care of their bodies, then give them tracts." That was well said. Look after the woes of the body, and then you will have some success in look- ing after the woes of the soul. -^ /
Still further: the great remedial inflitence is the Gos- pel of Christ. Take that down through the lanes of suffering. Take that down amid the hovels of sin. Take that up amid the mansions ana palaces of your city. That is the salt that can cure all the poisoned fountains of pub- lic iniquity. Do you know that in this cluster of three cities, New York, Jersey City, and Brooklyn, there are a great multitude of homeless children ? You see I speak more in reajard to the youth and the cliildren of the country, because old villains are seldom reformed, and
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therefore I talk more about the little ones. They sleep under the stoops, in the burned-out safe, in the wagons in the streets, on the barges, wherever thej can get a board to cover them. And in the summer thej sleep all night long in the parks. Their destitution is well set forth by an incident. A city missionary asked one of them: "Where is your home?" Said he: "1 don't have no home, sir." "Well, where are your father and mother?" "They are dead, sir." "Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ?" "No, I don't think I ever heard of him." "Did you ever hear of God. Yes, I've heard of God. Some of the poor people think it kind of lucky at nisfht to say something over about that before they go to sleep. Yes, sir, I've heard of him." Think of a conversation like that in a Christian city.
How many are waiting for you to come out in the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and rescue them from the wretchedness here ! A man was trying to talk with a group of these outcasf.s, and read the Bible, and trying to confort them, and lie said : "My dear boys, when your father and your mother forsake you, who will take you up?" They shouted "The perlice, sir; the perlice?" Oh that the Church of God had arms long enough and hearts warm enough to take them up. How many of them there are! As I was thinking of the subject this morning, it seemed to me as though there was a great brink, and that these little ones with cut and torn feet were coming on toward it. And here is a group of orphans. O fathers and mothers, what do you think of these fatherless and motherless little ones ? No hand at home to take care of their apparel, no heart to pity them. Said one little one, when the mother died: "Who will take care of my clothes now ? " The little ones are thrown out in this great, cold world. They are shivering on tho brink like
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lambs on the verge of a precipice. Does not yourjblood run ccld as they go over it 1
And here is another group that come on toward the precipice. They are the children of besotted parents. They are worse off than orphans. Look at that pale cheek: woe bleached it. Lock at that gash across the forehead; the father struck it. Hear that heart-piercing cry: a drunken mother's blasphemy compelled it. And we come out and we say: "O ye suffering, peeled and blistered ones, we come to help you." " Too late!" cry thousands of voices. " The path we travel is steep down, and we can't stop. Too late I" and we catch our breath and we make a terrific ou*:«jry. " Too late!" is echoed from the garret to the <iellar, from the gin-shop and from the brothet. " Too late!" It is too late, and they go over. .^^ ■'•".,''-: v;.-. ■ ■•. ^-:vr .., . . , ,....'^>..,'
■ Here is another group, an army of neglected children. Tliey come on toward th^ brink, and every time they step ten thousand hearts break. The ground is red with the blood of their feet. The .air is heavv with their groans. Their ranks are being filled up from all the houses of iniquity and shame. Skeleton Despair pushes them on toward the brink. The death-knell has already begun to toll, and the angels of God hover like birds over the plunge of a cataract. While these children are on the brink they halt, and throw out their hands, and cry: "Help! help!" O church of God, will you help? Men and women bought by the blood of the Son of God, will you help? while Christ cries from the heavens: " Save them from going down; I am the r«nsom." :; :V7
'^ I stopped the other day on the street and just looked at the face of one of those little ones. Have you ever examined the faces of the neglected children of the
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poor? Other children hive gladness in their faces. When a group of them rush across the road, it seems as though a spring gust had unloosened an orchard of apple blossoms. But these children of the poor. There is but little ring in their laughter, and it stops quick, as though some bitter memory tripped it. They have an old walk. They do not skip or run up on the lumber just for the pleasure of leaping down. They never bathed in the mountain stream. They never waded in the brook for pebbles. They never chased the butterfly across the lawn, putting their hat right' down where it was. Childhood has been dashed out of them. Want waved its wizard wand above the manger of their birth, and withered leaves are lying where God intended a budding giant of battle. Once in a while one of these children gets out. Here is one, for instance. At ten years of age he is sent out by his parents, who say to him; "Here is a basket — new go off and beg and steal." The boy saysr " I can't steal.'' They kick him into a corner. That night he puts his swollen head into the straw; but a voice comes from heaven, saying, " Courage, poor boy, courage." Covering up his head from the bestiality, and stopping his ears from the cursing, he gets on up better and better. He washes his face clean at the public hydrant. With a few pennies got at running errands, he gets a better coat. Rough men, knowing that he comes from the Five Points, say: " Back with you, you little villain, to the place where you came from." But that night the boy says: "God help me, I can't go back;" and quicker than ever mother flew at the cry of a child's pain, the Lord responds from the heavens, "Courage, poor boy, courage." His bright: face gets him a position. After a while he is second clerk. Years pass on, and he is first clerk. Yea ^ pass on. The
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glory of young manhood is on hitn. He comes into the firm. He goes on from one business success to another. He has achieved great fortune. He is the friend of the church of God, the friend of all good institutions, and one day he stands talking to the Board of Trade or to the Chamber of Commerce. People say: " Do you know who that is? Why, that is a merchant prince, and he was born in the Five Points. " But God says in regard to him something better than that: " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb." Oh, for some one to write the history of boy heroes anr" rr[r\ heroines who have triumphed over want and starvLv .nd filth and rags. Yea, the record has already been ade — made by the hand of God; and when these shall come at last with songs and rejoicing, it will take a very broad banner to hold the names of all the battle-fields on which they got the victory. '^ ^ ' '■"' Some years ago, a roughly-clad, ragged boy came into my brother's office in Xew York, and said: " Mr. Tal- mage, lend me five dollars." My brother said: " Who are you?" The boy replied: " I am nobody. Lend me five dollars." "What do you want to do with five dollars?" " Well," the boy replied, " my mother is sick and poor, and I want to go into the newspaper business, and I shall get a home for her, and I will pay you back." My brother gave him the five dollars, of course never expecting to see it again ; but he said : " When will you pay it?" The boy said: "I will pay it in six months, sir." Time went by, and one day a lad came into my brother's office, and said: "There's your five dollars." " What do you mean? What five dollars?" inquired my brother. " Don't you remember that a boy came in here six months ago and wanted to borrow five dollars to go
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iuto the newspaper business?" "Oh, yes, I remember. Are you the lad?" "Yes," he replied. "I have got along nicely. I have got a nice home for my mother (she is sick yet), and I am as well clothed as you are, and there's your five dollars." Oh, was ho not worth saving? Why, that lad is worth fifty such boys as I have some- times seen moving in elegant circles, never put to any use for God or man. Worth saving! I go farther than that, and tell you they are not only worth saving, but they are being saved. In one reform school, through which two thousand of these little ones passed, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five turned out well. In other words, onlv five of the two thousand turned out badly. There are thousands of them who , through Chris- tian societies, have been transplanted to beautiful homes all oveir this land, and there are many who, through the rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, have already won the c-'own. A little girl was found in the streets of Bal- timore and taken into one of the reform societies, and they said to her, " What is your name?" She said, " My name is Mary." " What is your other name?" She said, " 1 don't know." So they took her into the reform society, and as they did not know her last name they always called her "Mary Lost," since she had been picked up out of the street. But she grew on, and after a while the Holy Spirit came to her heart, and she be- came a Christian child, and she changed her name; and when anybody asked her what her name was, she said, -' It used to be Marv Lost; but now, since I have become a Chrstian, it is Mary Found."
For this vast multitude, are we willing to go fortu from this morning's service and see what we can do, employing all the agencies I have spoken of for the recti- fication of the poisonetl fountains? We live in a beautiful
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city. The lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and we liave a goodly heritage ; and any man who does not like a residence in Brooklyn, must be a most uncom- fortable and unreasonable man. But, my friends, the material prosperity of a city is not its chief glory. There may be fine houses and beautiful streets, and that all be tlie garniture of a sepulcher. Some of the most pros- perous cities of the world have gone down, not one stone left upon another. But a city may be in ruins long be- fore a tower has fallen, or a column has crumbled, or a tomb has been defaced. When in a city the churches of God are full of cold formalities and inanimate religion ; when the houses of commerce are the abode of fraud and unholy traffic; when the streets are filled with crime un- arrested and sin unenlightened pnd helplessness unpitied — that city is in ruins, though every church were a St. Peter's, and every moneyed institution were a Bank of England, and every library were a British Museum, and every house had a porch like that of Rheims and a roof like that of Amiens and a tower like that of Antwerp, and traceried windows like those of Freiburg. • i My brethren, our pulses beat rapidly the time away, and soon we will be gone; and what we have to do for the city in which we live we must do right speedily, or never do it at all. In that day, when those who have wrapped themselves in luxuries and despised the poor, shall come to shame and everlasting contempt, I hope it may be said of you and me that we gave bread to the hungry, and wiped away the tear of the orphan, and upon , the wanderer of the street we opened the brightness and benediction of a Christian home; and then, through our instrumentality, it shall be known on earth and in heaven, that Mary Lost became Mary Found!
IBBEwfi!
THE BATTUt: FOB BBEAJD.
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CHAPTEB XI.
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD.
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"And the ravens brought bread and flesh in the moming, and bread and' flesh in the evening."—! Kings xvii : 6.
The ornithology of the Bible is a very interesting study. The stork which knoweth her appointed time. The common sparrows teaching the lesson of God's providence. The ostriches of the desert, by careless incubation illustrating the recklessness of parents who do not take enough pains with their children. The eagle symbolizing riches which take wings and flv away. The pelican, emblemizing solitude. The bat, a flake of the darkness. The night hawk, the ossifrage, the cuckoo, the lapwing, the osprey, by the command of God in Leviticus, flung out of the world's bill of fare. I would like to have been with Audubon as he went through the woods, with gun and pencil bringing dowr and sketch- ing the fowls of heaven, his unfolded portfolio thrilling all Christendom. What wonderful creatures of God the birds are! Some of them this morning, like the songs of heaven let loose, bursting through the gates of heaven. Consider their feathers, which are clothing and convey- ance at the same time; the nine vertebraj of the neck, the three eyelids to each eye, the third eyelid an extra curtain for graduating the light of the sun. Sc me of these birds scavengers and some of them orchestra* Thank God for quail's whistle, and lark's carol, and the twitter of the wren, called by thf ancients the king of
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birds, because when the fowls of heavisn went into a con- test as to who could fly the Iiighest, and the eagle swung nearest the sun, a wren on the back of the eagle, after the eagle was exhausted, sprang up raucl\ higher, and so was called by the ancients the king of birds. Consider those of them that have golden crowns and crests, show- ing them to be feathered imperials. And listen to the humming-bird's serenade in the ear of the honeysuckle. Look at the belted kingfisher, striking like a dart from sky to water. Listen to the voice of the owl, giving the key-note to all croakers. And behold the condor, among the Andes, battling with the reindeer. I do not know whether an aquarium or aviary is the best altar from which to worship God. ♦ : « ' ' * ■;
t; There is an incident in my text that baffles all the ornithological wonders (►f the world. The grain crop had been cut off. Famine was in the land. In a cave by the brook Oherith safe a minister of God, Elijah, waiting for something to eat. Why did he not go to the neighbors? There were no neighbors, it was a wil- derness. Why did he not pick some of the berries? There were none. If there had been, they would have been dried up. Seated, one morning at the mouth of his cave, the prophet looks into the dry and pitiless heavens, and he sees a flock of birds approaching. Oh! if they were only partridges, or if he only had an arrow with which to bring them down. But as they come nearer he flnds they are not comestible, but unclean, and the eating of them would be spiritual «^eath. The strength of their beak, the length of their wings, the blackness of their color, their loud, harsh "cruckl cruck!" prove them to be ravens. They whirr around about the prophet's head, and then they come on fluttering wing and pause on the level of his lips, and one of the ravens
THE BATTLE FOR BBEAJ)*!
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brings bread, dnd another raven brings meat, and after thej have discharged their tiny cargo they wheel past, and others come, until after a while the prophet has enough, and these black servants of the wilderness table are gone. For six months, and some say a whole year, morning and evening, the breakfast and supper bell sounded as these ravens rang out on the air their "cruckf, crnckl" Guess where they got the food from. The old Rabbins say they got it from the kitchen of King Ahab. Others say that the ravens got the food from pious Oba- diah, who was in the habit of feeding the persecuted. Some say that the ravens brought the food to their young in the trees, and that Elijah had only to climb up and get it. Some say that the whole story is improb- able, for these were carnivorous birds, and the food they carried was the torn flesh of living beasts, and that cere- monially unclean, or it was carrion, and it would not have been fit for the prophet. Some say they were not ravens at all, but that the word translated " ravens " in my text ought to have been translated "Arabs; " so it would have read : "The Arabs brought bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." Anything but admit the Bible to be true. Hew away at this miracle until all the miracle is gone. Go on with the depleting process; but know, my brother, that you are robbing only one man — and that is yourself — of one of the most comforting, beautiful, pathetic, and tri- umphant lessons in all the ages. I can tell you who these purveyors were: they were ravens. I can tell you who freighted them with provisions. God. I can tell you who launched them. God. I can tell you who taught them .which way to fly. God. I can tell you who told them at what cave to swoop. God. I can tell you who introduced raven to prophet, and prophet to
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raven. God. There is one passage I will whisper in yonr ear, for I would not want to utter it aloud, lest some one should drop down under its power: "If anj man shall take away from the words of the prophesy of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city." While, then, this morning we watch the ravens feeding Elijah, let the swift dove of God's Spirit sweep down the sky with Divine food, and on outspread wing pause at the lip of every soul hungering for comfort.
If I should ask you where is the seat of war to-day, you would say on tlie Danube. No. That is compara- tively a small conflict, even if all Europe should plunge into it. The great conflict to-day is on the Thames, on the Hudson, on the Mississippi, on the Rhine, on the Nile, on the Ganges, on the Hoang Ho. It is a battle that has been going on for six thousand years. The troops engaged in it are twelve hundred millions, and those who have fallen are vaster in numbers than those who march. It is a battle for bread. Sentimentalists sit in a cushioned chair, in their pictured stud}', with their slippered feet on a damask ottoman, and say that this world is a great scene of avarice and greed. It does not seem so to me. If it were not for the absolute necessities of the cases, nine-tenths of the stores, facto- ries, shops, banking-houses, of the land would be closed to-morrow. "Who is that man delving in the Black Hills? or toiling in a New England factory? or going through a roll of bills in the bank? or measuring a fab- ric on the counter? He is a champion sent forth in
behalf of some home circle that has to be cared for — in
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behe'lf of some church of God that has to be supported — in behalf of some asylum of mercy that has to be sus- tained. Who is that woman bending over the sewing
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machine? or carrying the bundle? or sweeping the room? or mending the garment? or sweltering at the wash-tub? That is Deborah, one of the Lord's heroines, battling against Amalekitish want, which comes down with iron chariot to crush her and hers. The great question with the vast majority of people to-day is not whether Presi- dent Hayes treated South Carolina and Louisiana as he ought — not whether the Turkish Sultan or the Russian Czar ought to be helped in this conflict — the great ques- tion with the vast majority of people is: "How shall I support my family? How shall I meet my notes? How shall I pay my rent? How shall I give food, clothing, and education to those who are dependent upon me?" Oh! if God would help me to-day to assist you in the solution of that problem, the happiest man in this house would be your preacher. I have gone out on a cold morning with expert sportsmen to hunt for pigeons ; I have gone out on the meadows to hunt for quail; I have gone out on the marsh to hunt for reed birds; but this morning I am out for ravens.
Notice, in the first place, in the story of ray text, that these winged caterers came to Elijah directly from God. " I have commanded the ravens that they feed thee," we find God saying in an adjoining passage. They did not come out of some other cave. They did not just happen to alight there. God freighted them, God launched them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That is the same God that is going to supply you. He is your Father. You would have to make an elaborate calculation before you could tell me how many pounds of food and how many yards of clothing would be neces- sary for you and your family; but God knows without any calculation. You have a plate at his table, and you are going to be waited on, unless you act like a naughty
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child, and kick, and scramble, and pound saucily the plate, and try to upset things. God has a vast family, and everything is methodized, and you are going to be served, if you will only wait your turn. God has already ordered all the suits of clothes you will ever need down to the last suit in which you shall be laid out. God has already ordered all the food you will ever eat down to the last crumb that will be put in your mouth in the dying sacrament. It may not be just the kind of food or apparel we would prefer. The sensible parent depends on his own judgment as to what ought to be the apparel and the food of the minor in the family. The child would say: "Give me sugars and confections." "Oh I no," says the parent. " You must have something plainer first." The child would say: "Oh I give me these great blotches of color in the garment." " No," says the parent; "that wouldn't be suitable." NowJ God is our Father, and we are minors, and he is going to clothe us and feed us, although he may not ' 'ways yield to our infantile wish for sweets and glitter. ese ravens of the text did not bring pomegranates from the glittering platter of King Ahab. They brought Ivead and meat. God had all the heavens and the earth before him and under him, and yet he sends this plain food because it was best for Elijah to have itl Oh I be strong, my hearer, in the fact that the same God is going to supply you. It is never "hard times " with him. His ships never break on the rocks. His banks never fail. He has the supply for you, and he has the means for sending it. He has not only the cargo, but the ship. If it were necessary he would swing out from the heavens a flock of ravens reaching from his gate to yours, until the food would be flung down the sky from beak to beak and from talon to talon.
THE BATTLE FOR IJREAD.
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Notice, again, in this story of the text, that tlio ravens did not allow Elijah to lio;ird up a surplus. They did not hring enough on Monday to last all the week. They did not bring enough one morning to last until the next morning. They came twice a day, and brought just er'ough for one time. You know as well as I tliat the grevit fret of the world is that we want a surplus — wo want the ravens to bring enough for fifty years. You have more confidence in the Long Island Bank than you have in the royal bank of heaven. You say: "All that is very poetic, but you may liave the black ravens — give me the gold eagles." "VVe had better be content with just enough. If, in the morning, your family eat up all the food there is in the house, do not sit down, and cry, and say; " I don't know where the next meal is coming from." About five, or six, or «?Cven o'clock in the even- ing just look up, and you will see two black spots on the sky, and you will hear the flapping of wings, and, instead of Edgar A. Poc's insane raven " alighting on the chamber-door, only this, and nothing more," you will find Elijah's two ravens, or the two ravens of the Lord, the one bringing bread and the other bringing meat — plumed butcher and baker. ; ^ •
God is infinite in resource. "When the city of Rochelle was besieged, and the inhabitants were dying of the fam- ine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, and as never since, enough shell-fish to feed the whole city. God is good. There is no mistake about that. History tells us that, in 1555, in England, there was a great drought. The crops failed, but in Essex, on the rocks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cul- tured, a great crop of peas grew, until they filled a hun- dred measures; and there were blossoming vines enough promising as much more. But why go so far ? I can 10
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NiaUT SIDES OF OIT\r LIFM.
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give you a family incident. I will tell you a secret that has never been told. Some generations back there was a great drought in Connecticut, New England. The water disappeared from tiie hills and the farmers living on the hills drove their cattle down toward the valleys, and had their, supplied at the wells and fountains of the neighbors. But these after awhile began to ^'ail, and the neighbors said to Mr. Birdseye, of whom I shall speak: " You must not send your flocks and herds down here any more; our wells are giving out." Mr. Birdseye, the old Christian man, gathered his family at the altar, and with his family he gathered the slaves of the household — for bondage was then in vogue in Connecticut— and on their knees before God they cried for water; and the family story is, that there was weeping and great sobbing at that altar, that the family might not perish for lack of water, and that the herds and flocks might not perish. The family rose from the altar, Mr. Birdseye, the old man, took his staff and walked out over the hills, and in a place where he had been scores of times without notic- ing anything particular, he saw the ground was very dark, and he took hip staff> and turned up the ground, and the water started; and he beckoned to his servants and they came, and iliej brought pails and buckets until all the family, and all the flocks and the herds, were cared for, and then they made troughs reaching from that place down to the house and barn, and the water flowed, and it is a living fountain to-day! Now, I call that old grandfather, Elijah, and I call that brook that began to roll then, and. is rolling still, the brook Cherith; and the lesson to me, and to all who hear it, is, when
stress of circumstances.
you
gr(
pray
dig,
~ dig and pray, and pray and dig. How does that passage ^gol "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be
TIIK BATTLE FOK BKEAI).
ur
removed, but my loviiig-kindiiess shall not fail." It* your merchandise, if your mechanism, fail, look out for ravens. If you have, in your despondency, put God on trial, and condemned him as guilty of cruelty, I move, this morning for a new trial. If the biojjraphy of your life is ever written, I will tell j'ou what the first chapter, and the middle chapter, and the last chapter will bo about, if it is written accurately. The first about mercy, the middle chapter about mercy, the last chapter about mercy. The mercy that hovered over your cradle. The mercy that will hover over your grave. The mercy tliat will cover all between.
Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief came to this prophet with the most unexpected, and with seemingly mi possible, conveyance. If it had been a rob- in red-breast, or a musical meadow-lark, or a meek turt'c}- dove, or a sublime albatross that had brouglit the food to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But no. It was a bird so fierce and inauspicate that we have fash- ioned one of our most forceful and repulsive words out of it — raven jus. That bird has a passion for picking out the eyes of men and animals. It loves to maul the sick and the dying. It swallows, with vulturous guggle, everything it can put its beak on; and yet all the food Elijah gets for six months or a year is from the ravens. So your supply is going to come from an imexpected source. You think some great-hearted, generous man will come along and give you his name on the back of your note, or he will go security for you in some great enterprise. No, he will not. God will open the heart of some Shylock toward you. Your relief will come from the most unexpected quarter. The Providence that seemed ominous will be to you more than that which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chafiinch with
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NIGHT SIDES OF CITY LIFE.
I'*
breast and wing dashed with white, and brown,, and chestnnt: it will be a black raven. : ; v .
, Here is where we all make our mistake, and that is in regard to the color of G-od's providence. A white provi- dence comes to us, and we say: "O! it is mercy." Then a black providence comes toward us, and we say: "O! that is disaster." The white providence comes to you, and you have great business success, and you have fifty thousand dollars, and you get proud, and you get inde- pendent of Grod, and you begin to feel that the prayer "Give me this day my daily bread" is inappropriate for you, for you have made provision for a hundred years. Then a black providence comes, and it sweeps everything away, and then you begin to pray, and you begin to feel your dependence, and begin to be humble before God, and you cry cut for treasures in heaven. The black providence brought you salvation. The white provi- dence brought you ruin. That which seemed to be harsh, and fierce, and dissonant, was your greatest mer- cy. It was a raven.
There was a child born in your house. All your friends congratulated you. The other children of the family and of the neighborhood stood amazed looking at the new-comer, and asked a great many questions, gene- alogical and chronological. You said — and you said truthfully — that a white angel flew through the room and left the little one there. That little one stood with its two feet in the very center of your sanctuary of affec- tion, and with its two hands it took hold of the altar of your soul. But one day there came one of the three scourges of children — scarlet fever, or croup, or diph- theria—and all that bright scene vanished. The chatter- ing, the strange questions, the pulling at the dresses as you crossed the floor — all ceased. As the great friend of
THE BATTJ^: FOJB liKEAD.
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ciiildren stooped down and leaned toward that cradle, and took the little one in His arms, and walked away with it into the bower of eternal summer, your eye be- gan to follow Him, and you followed the treasure He car- ried, and you have been following them ever since; and, instead of thinking of heaven only once a week, as form- erly, you are thinking of it all the time, and you are more pure and tender-hearted than you used to be, and you are patiently waiting for the day-break. It is not self-righteousness in you to acknowledge that you are a better man than you used to be — you are a better woman than you used to be. What was it that brought you the sanctifying blessing'^ O! it was the dark shadow on the nursery; it was the dark shadow on the short grave; it was the dark shadow on your broken heart; it was the brooding of a great black trouble; it was a raven — it was a raven. Dear Lord, teach this people that white provi- dences do not always mean advancement, and that black providences do not always mean retrogression.
Children of God, get up out of your despondency. The Lord never had so many ravf i^^ as he has this morn- ing. Fling your fret and worry to the winds. Some- times, under the vexations Mfe, you feel like my littlo girl of four years last week, Wiio said, under some ch id- ish vexations: *'0h, I wish I could gu to heaven, and see God, and pick flowers!" He will let ^ou go when the right time comes to pick flowers. Until then, what< /er you want, pray for. I suppose Elijah prayed pretty much all the time. Tremendous work behind him. Tremend- ous work before him. God has no spare ravens f ^v ilers, or for people who are prayerless. I put it in th >olde8t shape possible, and I am willing to risk my eLernity on it: ask God in the right way for what you want, and you shall have it, if it is best for you. Mrs. Jane Pi they, of
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f
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NIGHT SIDES OF ClTr UFR.
Chicago, a well-known Christian woman, was left by her husband a widow with one half dollar and a cottage. She was palsied, and had a mother, ninety years of age, to sup- port. The widowed son I every day asked God for all that was needed in the household, and the servant even was astonished at the precision with which God answered the prayers of that woman item by item, item by item. One day, rising trom the family altar, the servant said: "You have not asked for coal, and the coal is out." Then they stood and prayed for the coc.' One hour after that, the servant threw open the door and said: "The coal has come." A generous man, whose name I could give you, had sent — as never before and never since — a supply of coal. You cannot understand it. I do. RavcusI Ravens!
My friend, you have aright to argue from precedent that God is going to take care of you. Has he not done it two or three times every day? That is most marvel- ous. I look back and I wonder that God has given me food three times a day regularly all my life-time, never missing but once, and then I was lost in the mountains; but tliat very morning and that very night I met the ravens.'
O! the Lord is so good that I wish all this people would trust Him with the two lives — the life you are now living and that which every tick of the watch and every stroke of the clock informs you is approaching. Bread for your immortal soul comes to-day. See! They alight on the platform. They alight on the backs of all the pews. They swing among the arches. Ravens! Ravens! " Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness, for they shall be filled." To all the sinning, and the sor- rowing, and the tempted deliverance comes this hour.' Look down, and you see nothing but spiritual deformi- ties. Look back, and you see nothin ' but wasted oppor-
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THE BATTLE FOK BREAD.
151
tanitj. Cast your eye forward, and you have a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary. But look up, and you behold the whipped shoulders of an interceding Christ, and the face of a pardoning God, and the irradiation of an open- ing heaven. I hear the whir of their wings. Do you not feel the rush of the air on your cheek? Ravens! Ravens!
There is only one question I want to ask: how many of this audience are willing to trust God for the supply of their bodies, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for the redeiir.tion of their immortal souls? Amid the clatter of the hoofs and the clang of the wheels of the judg- ment chariot, the whole matter will be demonstrated.
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XflUUT SiWEQ OF OITT LIFE.
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CHAPTER XII.
THE HORNET'S MISSION.
"And the Lord will send the hornet."— Deut. vii : 20.
It seems as if the insect world were determined to war against the human race. It is attacking the grain- fields and the orchards and the vineyards. The Colora- do beetle, the Nebraska grasshopper, the New Jersey lo- cust, the universal potato destroyer, seem to carry on the work whicli was begun ages ago when the insects buzzed out of Noah's ark as the door was opened.
In my text the hornet flies out on its mission. It is a species of wasp, swift in its motion and violent in its sting. Its touch is torture to man or beast. We have all seen the cattle run bellowing from the cut of its lan- cet. In boyhood we used to stand cautiously looking at the globular nest hung from the tree branch, and while we were looking at the wonderful pasteboard coverin|^ we were struck with something that sent us shrieking away. The hornet goes in swarms. It has captains over hundreds, and twenty of them attacking one man will produce certain death. The Persians attempted to conquer a Christian city, but the elephants and thp beasts on which the Persians rode were assaulted by the hornet, 80 that the whole army was broken up and the besieged city was rescued. This burning and noxious insect stung out the Ilittites and the Canaanites from their country. What the gleaming sword and chariot of war could not
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a. HORNET 8 MISSION.
153
accomplish was done by the puncture of an insect. The Lord sent the hornet.
My friends, when we are assaulted by behemoths of trouble — great behemoths of trouble — we become chival- ric, and we assault them; we get on the high-mettled steed of our courage, and we make a cavalry charge at them, and, if God be with us, we come out stronger and better than when we went in. But, alasl for these in- sectile annoyances of life — these foes too small to shoot— these things without any avoirdupois weight — the gnats, and the midges, and the flies, and the wasps, and the hornets. In other words, it is the small stinging annoy- ances of our life which drive us out and use us up. In- to the best conditioned life, for some grand and glorious purpose, God sends the hornet.
I remark in the first place that these small stinging annoyances may come in the shape of a sensitive nerv- ous organization. People who are prostrated under typhoid fevers or with broken bones get plenty of sympathy, but who pities anybody that is nervous? The doctors say, and the family says, and everybody says, " Oh! she 's only a little nervous; that 's all." The sound of a heavy foot, the harsh clearing of a throat, a discord in music, a want of harmony between the shawl and the glove on the same person, a curt answer, a passing slight, the wind from the east, any one of ten thousand annoy- ances, opens the door for the hornet. The fact is, that the vast majority of the people in this country are over- worked, and their nerves are the first to give up. A great multitude are under the strain of Leyden, who, when he was told by his physician that if he did not stop working while he was in such poor physical health he would die, responded, " Doctor, whether I live or die the wheel must keep going around." These persons of whom
154
NIGHT 8TT)E8 OF CITY LIFE.
:i .■ . :' P-..V!
I speak liave a bleeding sensitiveness. The liies love to light on anything raw, and these people are like the Canaanites spoken of in the text or in the context — they have a very thin covering and are vulnerable at all points. "And the Lord sent the hornet."
Again, these small insect annoyances may come to us in the shape of friends and acquaintances who are always saying disagreeable things. There are some people you cannot be with for half an hour but you feel cheered and comforted. Then there are other people you cannot be with for live minutes before you feel miserable. They do not mean to disturb you, but they sting yon to the bone. They gather up all the yarn which the gossips spin, and peddle it. They gather up all the adverse crit- icisms about your person, about your business, about your liome, about your church, and they make your ear the funnel into which they]>our it. They laugh heartily when they tell you, as though it were a erood joke, and you laugh too — outside. These people are brought to our attention in the Bible, in the Book of Ruth: Naomi went forth beautiful and with the finest of worldly pros- pects into another land, but after awhile she came back widowed, and sick, and poor. What did her friends do when she came back to the city? They all went out, and, instead of giving her common-sense consolation, what did they do? Read the book of Ruth and find out. They threw up their hands and said, " Is this Naomi?" as much as to say " How very bad you look! " When I entered the ministry I looked very pale for years, afnd every year, for four or five years, a hundred times a year, I was asked if I was not in a consumption! And pass- ; ing through the room I would sometimes hear people sigh and say, " A-ah ! not long for this world !" I resolved in those times that I never, in any conversation, wo^ld
THE hornet's mission
155
say anything depressing, and by the help of God I liave kept the resolution. These people of whom I speak reap and bind in the great harvest-field of discouragement. Some days you greet them with a hilarious ''Good morning," and they come bmzing at you with some de- pressing information. "The Lord sent the hornet." It is astonishing how some people prefer to write and to say disagreeable things. That was the case when four or five years ago Henry M. Stanley returned after his magnificent exploit of finding T>> ctor David Livingstone, and when Mr. Stanley stood before the savans ot Europe, and many of the small critics of the day, under pretence of getting geographical information, put to him most in- solent questions, he folded his arms and refused io an- swer. At the very time when you would suppose all de- cent men would have applauded the heroism of the man, there were those to hiss. "The Lord sent the hornet." And now at this time, when that man sits down on the western coast of Africa, sick and worn perhaps in the grandest achievement of the age in the way of geograph- ical discovery, there are small critics all over the world to buzz and buzz, and caricature and deride him, and after a while he will get the London papers, and, as he opens them, out will fly the hornet. When I see that there are so many people in the world who like to say disagreeable things, and write disagreeable things, I come almost in my weaker moments to believe what a man said to me in Philadelphia one Monday morning. I went to get the horse that was at the livery, and the hostler, a plain man, said to me: "Mr. Talmage, I saw that you preached to the young men yesterday." I said, "Yes." He said, "No use, no use; man's a failure."
The small insect annoyances of life sometimes come in the shape of a local physical trouble, which does not
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156
NIOIIT SIDES OF QITY LIFE.
-I*"
amount to a positive prostration, but which bothers you when you want to feel tlie best. Periiaps it is a sick headache which has been the plague of your life, and you appoint some occasion of mirth, or sociality, or use- fulness, and when the clock strikes the hour you cannot make your appearance. Perha])3 the trouble is between the ear and the forehead, in the shape of a neuralgic twinge. Nobody can see it or sympathize with you; but just at the time when you want your intellect clearest, and your disposition brightest, you feel a sliarp, keen, disconcerting thrust. "The Lord sent the hornet."
Perhaps these small insect annoyances will come in the shape of a domestic irritation. The parlor and the kitchen do not always harmonize. To get good service and to keep it is one of the great questions of the coun- try. Sometimes it may be the arrogancy and inconsid- erateness of employers; but whatever be the fact, we all admit there are these insect annoyances winging tlieir way out from the culinary department. If the grace of God be not in the heart of the housekeeper, she cannot maintain her equilibrium. The men come home at night and hear the story of these annoyances, and say: "Oh! these home troubles are very little things." They are small, small as wasps, but they sting. Martha's nerves were all unstrun": when she rushed in asking Christ to reprove Mary, and there are tens of thousands of women who are dying, stung to death by these pestiferous do- mestic annoyances. " The Lord sent the hornet." ■
These small insect disturbances may also come in the shape of business irritations. There are men here who went through 1857 and Sept. 24, 1869, without losing their balance, who are every day unhorsed by little an- noyances— a clerk's ill-manners, or a blot of ink on a bill of lading, or the extravagance of a partner who over-
THE hornet's mission.
16T
draws his account, or the underselling by a business rival, or the whispering of business confidences in the street, or the making of some little bad debt which was against your judgment, just to please somebody else. It is not the panics that kill the merchants. Panics come only once in ten or twenty years. It is the constant din of these every-day annoyances which is sending so many of our best merchants into nervous dyspepsia and paraly- sis and the grave. When our national commerce fell flat on its face, these men stood up and felt almost defiant; but their life is giving way now under the swarm of these pestiferous annoyances. "The Lord sent the hornet.",
I have noticed in the history of some of my congre- gation that their annoyances are multiplying, and that they have a hundred • here they used to have ten. The naturalist tells us that a wasp sometimes has a family of twenty thousand wasps, and it does seem as if every an- noyance of your life bred a million. By the help of God to-day I want to show you the other side. The hornet is of no use? Oh, yes! The naturalists tell us they are very important in the world's economy; they kill spiders and they clear the atmosphere; and I really believe God sends the annoyances of our life upon us to kill the spiders of the soul and to clear the atmos- phere of our skies. These annoyances are sent on us, I think, to wake us up from our lethargy. There is noth- ing that makes a man so lively as a nest of "yellow jackets," and I think that these annoyances are intended to persuade us of the fact that this is not a world for us to stop in. If we had a bed of everything that was at- tractive and soft and easy, what would we want of heaven? You think that the hollow tree sends the hor-
168
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net, or you think the devil aends the hornet. I want to correct jour opinion. " The Lord sent the hornet."
Then I also think these annoyances come upon us to culture our patience. In the gymnasium you find upright parallel bars — bars witli holes over each other for i)eg8 to be put in. Then the gymnast takes a peg in each hand and he begins to climb, one inch at a time, or two inches, and getting his strength cultured, reaches after a while the ceiling. And it seems to me that these annoy- ances in life are a moral gymnasium, each worry a peg by which we are to climb higher and higher in Christian attainment. We all love to see patience, but it cannot be cultured in fair weather. It is a cliild of the storm. If you had everything desirable and there was nothing more to get, what would you want with })atience? The only time to culture it is wiien you are slandered and cheated, and sick and half dead. "Oh," you say, " if I only had the circumstances of some well-to-do man I would be patient too." You might as well say, " If it were not for this water I would swim;" or, "I could shoot this gun if it were not for the caps." When you stand chin-deep in annoyances is the time for you to swim out toward the great headlands of Christian attainment, and when your life is loaded to the muzzle with repul- sive annoyances — that is the time to draw the trigger. Nothing but the furnace will ever burn out of us tlie clinker and the slag. I have formed this theory in re- gard to small annoyances and vexations: It takes just so much trouble to fit us for usefulness and for heaven.- The only question is, whether w^e shall take it in the bulk, or pulverized and granulated. Here is one man . who takes it in the bulk. His back is broken, or his eyesight put out, or some other awful calamity befalls him; while the vast majority of people take the thingpiece-
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159
meal. Which way would yon rather have iL? Of course ''\ piecemeal. Better liavc live aching teeth than one brokeu jaw. Better ten fly- blistertj than au amputation. Better twenty squalls than one cyclone. There may he a differ- ence of opinion as to allopathy and homoepathy; but in tliis matter of trouble I like lionuBopathic doses — small pellets of annoyanee rather than some knock-down dose of calamity. Instead of the thunderbolt give us the hor- uet. If you liave a bank you would a great deal rather that fifty men should come in with elieques less tlian a hundred dollars than to have two depositors come in the same day each wanting his ten thousand dollars. In this latter case, you cough and look down at the floor and up at the ceiling before you look into the safe. Now, my friends, would you not rather have these small drafts of annoyance on your bank of faith than some all- staggering demand upon your endurance? I want to make you strong, that you will not surrender to small annoyances. In the village of Hamelin, tradition says, there was an invasion of rats, and these small creatures almost devoured the town and threatened the lives of the population, and tlie story is that a piper came out one day and played a very sweet tune, and all the vermin followed him — followed him to the banks of the Weser and then he blew a blast and they dropped in and disap- peared forever. Of course this is a fable, but I wish I could, on the sweet flute of the Gospel, draw forth all the nibbling and burrowing annoyances of your life, and play them down into the depths forever. How many touches did the artist give to his picture of "Cotopaxi," or his "Heart of the Andes?" I suppose about fifty thousand touches. I hear the canvas saving, "Why do you keep mo trembling with that pencil so long? Why don't you put it on in one dash?" " No," says the artist, " I knovs^
ICO
NIGHT SIDES OF OHT LIFE.
''^^
how to make a painting; it will take fifty thoii^-^-id of these touches." And I want you, my friends, to under- stand that it is these ten thousand annoyances which under God, are making up the picture of your life, to be hung at last in the galleries of heaven, fit for angels to look at. God knows how to make a picture.
If I had my way with you I would have you possess all possible worldly prosperity. I would have you each one a garden — a river running through it, geraniums and shrubs on the sides, and the grass and fiowers as beautiful as though the rainbow had fallen, I would have you a house, a splendid mansion, and the bed should be covered with upholstery dipped in the setting sun. I would have every hall in your ho^se sot with stat- ues and statuettes, and then I would have the four quart- ers of the globe pour in all their luxuries on your table, and you should have forks of silver and knives of gold, inlaid with diamonds and amethysts. Then you should each one of you have the finest horses, and your pick of the equipages rf the world. Then I would liave you live a hundred and fifty years, and you should not have a pain or ache until the last breath. " Not each one of U6?" you say. Yes, each one of you. "Not to 3^our enemies?" Yes; the oniydiflfe: icc I would make with them would be that 1 would put a little extra gilt on their walls and a little extra em^broidery on their slippers. But you say, " Why does not God give us all these things?" Ah! I bethir^kmyself. He is wiser. It would make fools and slugqra.'ds of us if we had our way. No man puts his best picture in the portico or vestibule of his house. God meant thl3 world to be only the vesti- bule of heaven, that great gallery of the universe toward which we are aspiring. We must not have it too good in this world, or we would want no heaven. You are
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XfiE hornkt's mission.
161
surprised that aged people are bo willing to go out of this world. I will tell you the reason. It is not onlv because of the bright prospects in heaven, l)ut it is be- cause they feel that seventy years of annoyaiice is enough. They would have lain down in the soft mead- ows of this world forever, but " God sent the hornet."
My friends, I shall not have preached in vain if I have shown you that the annoyances of life, the small annoy, ances, may be subservient to your present and eternal ad- vantage. Polycarp was condemned to be burned at the stake. The stake was planted. He was fastened to it, the faggots were placed round about the stake, they were kindled, but, by some strange current of the atmosphere, history tells us, the flames bent outward like the sails of a ship under a strong breeze, and then far above they came together, making a canopy; so that instead of being destroyed by the flames, there lie stood in a flame-buoy- ant bower planted by his persecutors. They had to take his life in another way, by the point of the ])oinard. And I have to tell you this inorning that God can make all the flames of your trial a wall of defense and a cano- py for the soul. God is just as willing to fulfill to you as he was to Polycarp the ])romise, " When thou passest through the fire thou shalt not be burned." In heaven you will acknowledge the fact that you never had one annoyance too many, and through all eternity you will be grateful that in this world the Lord did send the hor- net. ''Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometli in the morning." ''All things work together for good to those who love God." The Lord sent the sunshine. "The Lord sent the hornet." 11
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The aim oi"TnK IIomk Guide" is to give the very best of all that is to be found in expensive and cumbersome works, in a condensed, compact, cheap and convenient form, dispensing with all unnecessary words which mystily and con- fuse, sifting the wheat from the chaft' of all standard authorities, besides addinj^ much practical and valuable information never before published. After many years of toil, and expenditure of many hundreds of dollars, writing, collecting, Ijleaning, condensing, and preparing the work for publication, we take pleasure m presenting this Original and Umquc Book, feeling we have accomplished a great task in supplying a want long felt, — one that will be appreciated by the public — a book long sought, but never before attainable. A complete guide to every department of the household. The best experience of the past condensed for the practical use of the present. A book every tamih' shoidd have, and having, will not be without. The best ideas of the most advanceil economists of the age are compiled tor common use in this book. Domk.stic EcoNOiMY IN A Nutshell. It contains Thousands of Important Facts, \'al- uable Mints and Useful Suggestions. It tells
How to Save in Furniture. How to Save in Fuel.
How^ to Secure a Home. How to Build a Home. How to Furnish s. Home. How to Decorate a Home. How to Preserve Health. How to Care for the Sick. How to Live Comfortably. How to Live Cheaply.
How to Save in Cooking:. How to Save in Clothes. How to Preserve Many Thing-s. How to Make Many Thingrs. How to Mend Many Thiag-s. How to Make Home Happy.
It is a Home Book, a Family Doctor, a Book of Domestic Pharmacy, a Fam- ily Surgeon, a Cook Book, a Book of Household Management, a Book of Con- fectionary, a Book of Distilling, a Book of Toilet, a Book of Home Amuse- ments, a Book of Ornamental Leather and Wax Flower Work, a Book of Fancy
Needle Work, a Book of Farm Receipts.
A BOOK FOR THE FATHER, MOTHER, BROTHER, SISTER AND LOVER, MINISTER. DOCTOR, LAWYER, MERCHANT, MANUFACTURER MINER, MARINER, FARMER, MECHANIC AND APPRENTICE.
In fact, a Book lor P2verybody, old or yoxmg, m.^le or female, and sold at a , price within the reach of all.
It is bound in one I^arge Octavo Volume of 522 pages, printed from beauti- ful clear type, on paper made expressly for the Book, and illustrated by 6S engravings, and substantially and elegantly
Bound in English Cloth, Back and Side In Black and Gold, Bound in English Cloth, Gilt Edges, Parlor Edition.
$2.00 2.50
It is sold by subiscriptiDn, and can be had only thrmi-;h >'.ur duly appointed Agents, ov by addressing the publi. hers.
A copy of this boo'- will be promptly sent, postage prepaid by us, on receipt of price, ^S.OO when an auih^..ixcd agent is unknown to be in the vicinity. ' ,::v
IDE.
DAY LIFE,
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any Thing-s. ay Thlng-s. any Thicgrs. Come Happy.
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from beauti- rated by 6S
$2.00 2.50
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